I’ll arrest phenomenon of vigilantism — President

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has given the strongest indication yet that no member of his party who flouts the law in the name of political vigilantism will be spared because wrongdoing has no political colour.

“I will not walk the path others trod to turn a blind eye to the criminal misdeeds of their followers and take no action, as it will displease them. I am walking another path, the path of making a reality the principle of the rule of law, the idea of every citizen being equal before the law,” he added.

The President, who was addressing the National House of Chiefs in Kumasi on Monday, assured the chiefs that he would do everything within his power to arrest what he called the new phenomenon of vigilantism.

He condemned the increasing reported cases of rape and defilement and said the perpetrators of those heinous crimes must be dealt with according to law.

He urged the chiefs and senior citizens of the country not to intervene in such matters.

Environment

Wearing an African print shirt, which has become his trademark, the President called attention to the fact that some traditional practices and rites of old were still beneficial for the sustenance of the environment.

He mentioned the prohibition of fishing and farming on certain days in some communities, as well as farming within a certain distance of water bodies, as an example of such traditional practices.

President Akufo-Addo said chiefs also had the responsibility to help halt the devastating phenomenon of galamsey because it would endanger the lives of the present generation and jeopardise those of future generations.

He pleaded with traditional rulers to help do away with some practices such as widowhood rites that dehumanised women.

 Chieftaincy disputes

He expressed concern that there were as many as 352 chieftaincy disputes in the country, some of which had blossomed into conflicts, culminating in the destruction of lives and property and posing a great threat to the security of the state.

To address the situation, he said, the government had put in place measures, including the recruitment of more lawyers for the judicial committees of the houses of chiefs and the provision of more resources to increase the number of sitting days of the judicial committees in order to expedite action on the adjudication of cases.

He said in almost all the traditional areas he had visited, he had been inundated with complaints which indicated that “there is general dissatisfaction with the current state of the laws regarding the relationship between chiefs and those who live in their jurisdictions”.

President Akufo-Addo said although the Supreme Court had given a ruling on the issue, there was the need to give it a further thought and come to a suitable form of wording that would give a legal backing and respect and authority to chiefs.

He added that the government was working assiduously to complete the codification of traditional laws and rules that had guided communities over the ages.

Employment

Touching on the economy, the President said the government was dealing with the fundamentals of the economy by formalising the structure through policies such as the national identification card, the national digital property addressing system, property identification system, e-registration for business and paperless registration at the ports.

He reiterated that the success or otherwise of his administration would greatly be determined by the number of jobs he would create.

He explained that it was in response to that challenge that his administration had rolled out programmes such as one-district, one-factory, Planting for Food and Jobs, the national entrepreneurial and innovative platform, mass cocoa spraying, the afforestation programme, as well as the increasing employment of health professionals, teachers and extension officers.

The President urged the chiefs to pay great attention to the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, which held the cure to reduce the astronomical expenditure of foreign exchange on food importation, which stood at $2.2 billion in 2015, equivalent to the amount of resources derived from cocoa exports.

NHIS

He said the government had paid GH¢560 million out of the GH¢1.2 billion owed to service providers of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and pledged to defray the rest within the next 12 months.

Togbe Afede

Welcoming President Nana Akufo-Addo to the National House of Chiefs, the President of the house, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, Togbe Afede XIV, said chiefs agreed with the President that the country was not poor because it was endowed with numerous natural resources and great human resource.

He called for job creation, the construction of more roads to open up the country and the building of educational infrastructure.

Togbe Afede said the President’s bold development agenda was what was needed to address national developmental challenges, not mediocrity that would turn the clock of progress back.

He said it was for those reasons that chiefs were glad about the President’s various transformational policy implementation less than a year into his four-year term.

He said throughout the country, chiefs were positioning themselves to not only support the agenda of one-district, one-factory but also be participants in the national development effort.

 Togbe Afede said the free senior high school programme was very crucial because it would cure the society of ignorance and make the youth employable, adding that the national identity card, the paperless port system and the e-registration of business would help speed up the development process.