He said various attempts to influence the choice of traditional leaders remained the main causes chieftaincy disputes which continued to retrogress communities.

Togbe Tepre Hodo was addressing the regional house at its final meeting for the year.

“One area of concern highlighted a couple of times is the many chieftaincy related issues bedevilling the institution and I think the time has come to take bold steps for us to minimise the issues by ensuring that we leave the kingmakers of the various stools ti to enstool or distool their chiefs.

“Let us resist the influence of money bags and in some cases, politicians, in the decision to enstool the candidate and insist on the right things being done,” he said.

“We have had enough of these retrogressive approaches to what we believe could be a choice based on merit, integrity, entitlement, and fairness.

“Lets respect the role of the kingmakers and the end results will be a significant reduction in the incident of chieftaincy disputes and the attendant litigations in our Region.” he added.

Togbe Tepre Hodo, earlier, while addressing the festival of the people of Peki and Hohoe, said the Volta Region had more than 50 chieftaincy disputes to continued to burden the regional house of chiefs.

He told Chiefs that the House had established mediation and arbitration channels, and urged all parties to take advantage.

The Regional House spent about two hours debating controversies surrounding the induction of Chiefs whose legitimacy were being contested, into the House, with many calling for a hold on the planned induction to be held in coming weeks.

Harry Attipoe, Registrar of the House, said the number of court cases brought against the institution in the Region continued to rise, and that inductions could be discontinued in the face of all the controversies.