Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia with the chiefs and queenmothers
Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has promised to pay living allowances to chiefs and queenmothers when elected President.
He believes that will enable traditional leaders to get adequate resources to perform their responsibilities effectively.
Dr. Bawumia who is also the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the upcoming December 2024 elections gave the assurance when he met the Greater Accra Region House of Chiefs at Dodowa, as part of his nationwide tour.
He said chiefs cannot be tasked with responsibilities without being resource, reason he believes paying them living allowances was necessary.
“To be able to get the chieftaincy institution to really play its proper roles financially, the institution has to be resourced…you can’t give them responsibilities without resourcing them,” he said.
“So the recommendation that has come which we will put in the Manifesto is to make sure that we pay living wages to the chieftaincy institution,” he said.
Under the current circumstance, paramount chiefs are paid GH¢1,000 a month.
He said this cannot even pay for their fuel.
Apart from that, he said, “there is no payment for the queenmothers and divisional chiefs and so we need to pay living allowances to the paramount chiefs, divisional chiefs and also to the queenmothers”, Bawumia stressed.
The NPP flagbearer also pledged his government’s commitment to codify the lines of succession of the chieftaincy institutions.
To achieve that goal, Dr. Bawumia said, he would resource and empower the Judiciary Councils of the House of Chiefs to perform that task.
That, he said, would help curb the protracted chieftaincy litigations that characterised the rightful person to be a chief in a particular traditional area.
The Vice President also promised to amend the Chieftaincy Act to empower chiefs to enforce discipline in their various jurisdictions effectively.
According to him, there was a lack of discipline in many societies due to the limited powers granted to chiefs regarding summoning someone to the palace.
“So, I am proposing an amendment of Section 63D of the Chieftaincy Act and this is what my Manifesto Committee is recommending to give more powers back to the chiefs,” he stated.
Dr. Bawumia was optimistic that the proposal would enable chiefs to resolve disputes within their communities swiftly in order to reduce the backlog of cases at the courts.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent