Speaker advocates inclusion of traditional leaders in Parliament - Calls for constitutional reforms

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, has advocated that the traditional institutions, particularly chiefs and queenmothers should be elevated and mainstreamed into national governance.

He said that was why in any review of the 1992 Constitution, areas should be earmarked to allow some traditional leaders, both chiefs and queenmothers, to qualify to be in Parliament.

"Countries like Botswana and Rwanda have gotten it right.

 The presence of these traditional leaders brings sanity and discipline into the House and contributes to enhancing our rich culture," the Speaker said.

Mr Bagbin was addressing the Queen Mothers Association from all 16 regions of Ghana last Friday at his office in Parliament.

The Queenmothers were there to familiarise with the Speaker and to acquaint themselves with the legislative processes in Parliament. 

Governance

The Speaker said governance was not only about parties and as such could not be left in the hands of politicians alone.

"We can play politics without being partisan.

"Politics is about the formulation of policies that are nurtured by the interest of all and their view taken into consideration in fashioning out such policies," Mr Bagbin told the queenmothers.

The Queen Mothers Association from all 16 regions of Ghana last Friday

He said when that was done everybody felt part and parcel of the policy at the implementation stage.

"You are an authority and influential people in your communities and your view cannot be overlooked," he told the queenmothers.

Tracing the trajectory of governance in Ghana, the Speaker said: "As a country we lost our direction when we gained independence by wrongly identifying the true leaders of our country."
"We placed our hopes and aspirations into the hands of only the politicians and we lost it," he said.

Indeed, the Speaker said even during the pre-independence era when the whites invaded the country, they recognised the traditional leaders as the true leaders.

"That was why they ruled us indirectly through our traditional leaders and not politicians," he said.

The President of the Queen Mothers Association and the Paramount Queen Mother of the Nkonya Traditional Area, Nana Otubea ll, bemoaned the exclusion of queenmothers in decision-making at the regional and national Houses of Chiefs.

She said the exclusion was discriminatory and made them second-class citizens.

Nana Otubea said the association was, therefore, seeking clarification and interpretation of the word Chief in the constitution.

She said as it stood now, the constitution was biased towards them and allowing only their male counterparts to appropriate the word "Chief."

The Director of Public Engagement of Parliament, Superintendent Effia Tenge (retd), took the queenmothers through the history of Ghana's Parliament from the Westminster days to now.
She took them through the oversight responsibilities of Parliament as well as how the various committees work.

MPs

Some Members of Parliament (MP) present at the meeting were Helen Adjoa Ntosu, MP for Krachi East; Kobina Mensah Woyome, MP for South Tongu; Solomon Kuyon, MP for Krachi Nchumuru; Wisdom Gidisu, MP for Krachi West, and MP for Afram Plains North Constituency, Betty Nana Kroabi Mensah.