PRESIDENT of the National House of Chiefs, Naa Prof John Nabila, has urged the country’s traditional rulers to stay neutral in partisan politics and desist from openly showing preferences for political parties and their candidates.
The Wulugu Naba Pugansoa also wants his colleague chiefs to be non-discriminatory in their actions and inactions toward any political party and its followers, while being measured in their pronouncements in this political season.
His comment follows open declaration of support and public endorsement by some chiefs for the second term bid of President John Dramani Mahama during his “Accounting to the People” tour across the country.
Nana Asiedu Agyemang III, Acting Kwahuhene, recently threw his weight behind the President by engaging in partisan political endorsement in the open to the chagrin of his subjects, contrary to Article 276 of the 1992 Republican Constitution.
The constitutional injunction forbids chiefs to take part in active partisan politics, but the acting Kwahuhene and some other traditional rulers have thrown caution to the wind.
Nana Bosoma Asor Nkrawiri II, paramount chief of Sunyani Traditional Area, in particular, went to the extent of promising 80 percent of votes in the 2016 general election for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) – a comment which attracted opprobrium for the chief.
Addressing members of the National House of Chiefs at a day’s seminar in Kumasi yesterday, Prof Nabila urged chiefs who are offered an opportunity to speak at any forum to be circumspect in what they say, reminding them to take into consideration the constitutional injunction.
He appealed to Nananom to welcome any political party officials who would decide to call on them to seek their blessing before embarking on their campaigns.
The President of the National House of Chiefs again appealed to Ghanaians to preserve and maintain the peace of the nation without taking it for granted.
“We must do all we can to protect and sustain it [peace]. This appeal is necessary and timely, considering this year as an election year and more so, at the time all the various political parties are getting ready to go into vigorous campaigns,” he stressed.
Economy
The seminar was organised by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to discuss issues relating to the nation’s economy with the chiefs.
It was the third in a series of seminars to have been organised by the Ministry and other key government agencies – National Development Planning Commission and the National Population Council – whose functions and duties have direct bearing on the economy.
The sector Minister, Seth Terkper, on his part, said the success of the 2016 general election was crucial to the country’s economic stability.
According to him, Ghana has good prospect and that what government is required to do is to properly invest and diversify the economy while improving on the overall governance indicators, monetary and financial management and performance.
“We should use IMF for correction and not for policies,” he suggested and added that the NDC government went to the International Monetary Fund for bailout because of lack of strong market in the country.
Mr Terkper indicated that the IMF was the last resort if the internal policy of a country failed to correct worsening economic situations.
He called on government to guard against increasing election year expenditure by focusing only on “pipeline projects” without adding on new ones in order to sanitise the financial system.
The Finance Minister also wants government to watch increasing debt stock, pointing out that his Ministry had adopted a sovereign to project debt management strategy to deal with debt accumulation.
“We have also shifted from unfettered sovereign guarantee to project guarantee and insurance,” he noted and continued that government was using concessional loans to finance social infrastructure.
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