Government Not Creating Ethnic Regions – Minister

Mr Daniel Botwe, Minister for Regional Re-organisation and Development has stated that “we are not in the business of creating ethnic regions” but rather political administrative regions.

He assured chiefs and traditional rulers that “No kingdom, no ethnic head will lose his authority because one area of his jurisdiction moves to another region.”

Mr Botwe said this when making a presentation on the creation of proposed new regions at a sensitisation workshop in Tamale on Wednesday for media practitioners, and staff of the Information Services Department and the National Commission for Civic Education in the Northern Region.

The workshop was to arm participants with information on the proposed creation of new regions to enable them to better inform the citizenry about the exercise.

The Commission of Inquiry listening to views of people on the creation of new regions will begin the last leg of its public hearings in the Northern Region from March 13 to March 25, this year.

The Commission will hear arguments from petitioners from the Mamprugu Traditional Area and the Gonja Traditional Area on the creation of new regions out of the Northern Region.

Ahead of the public hearings, some chiefs in the region have stated that they do not want their subjects to fall under other regions as this will make them to pay allegiance to chiefs in those regions other than chiefs in their original jurisdictions.

Other chiefs have argued that a new region  should be created for their traditional area alone as it possessed a large tract of land and that no part of that land should be found in any other region.

Mr Botwe said people from different traditional authorities, who found themselves in other traditional authorities, still paid allegiance to their original traditional authorities adding “There are people who are in another region, who owe allegiance to chiefs in another region.”

He emphasised that “in fact, in Volta Region, there are chiefs in Togo, who owe allegiance to chiefs in Ghana and they come to Ghana when they are installing chiefs” asking “So if international boundary does not stop allegiance to stools or skins, how can an administrative boundary in Ghana stop that?

He reiterated that the creation of the proposed regions did not mean creating ethnic boundary but rather a political administration.

Mr Salifu Saeed, Northern Regional Minister said the creation of new regions would ensure effective administration as the Northern Region was wide and diverse with its administrative implications.

Source: GNA