Mr Amon Quartey, a local governance expert has welcomed the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) decision to establish the Royal Institute of Chiefs and Traditional Authorities (RICTA) when given the mandate to manage the affairs of this country come December 7.
He deemed the establishment as a step in the right direction in that it would give the traditional rulers the opportunity to play major developmental roles in our governance discourse.
He noted that oftentimes the traditional rulers are not informed or called to play parts in the execution of developmental projects at the decision stage even though the majority of the lands belong to them.
“They are only called to come and cut tapes to commission projects or support the commissioning of projects without playing a major role at the decision making stage but, can be more useful than we are seeing in our developmental discourse”, he divulged.
Mr Quartey made the statement when reacting to issues in the NDC Manifesto launch as raised by Mr Kwame Offei, host of “Adzekyee Mu Nsem” on Spice fm in Takoradi.
Touching on the payment of salaries to Assembly Members, he explained that the role of Assembly Members as enshrined in the Local Government Act (…) that established the District Assemblies is voluntary which cannot qualify them for salaries.
He added that it will be termed as a conflict of interest if they are paid since they would be taking double salaries from their private work and that of the State unless the Law is amended to redefine their roles.
However, he contended that there were more ways the Assembly Members could raise money to pay themselves under the Act if we paid serious attention to decentralisation.
According to him, linking the registration of Births and Deaths to the Electoral Areas is nothing new since it is already stipulated in the Act, and called for a more decentralized governance to enable the Electoral Areas to function in its capacity.
