Mr Debrah gave the commendation at a grand durbar of chiefs and people of Anlo to climax this year’s Hogbetsotso Festival on Saturday at Anloga in the Anloga District of the Volta Region.

The festival was held on the theme:

“Building Bridges: From Common History to a Common Destiny.”

Mr Debrah explained that President Mahama had decided to make judicious use of the Volta Lake by investing in agricultural production along the banks of the river, building agro-processing industries, creating a zone for export, and promoting water transportation between Ghana and other countries.

According to him, the move would help create jobs for Ghanaians. He, therefore, appealed to the chiefs and people of the Volta Region to support the vision of the President and pray for him to succeed.

Mr Debrah said with the needed support, the region would see a drastic transformation that would improve the living conditions of the citizenry.

On his part, the National Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Asiedu Nketia, said the reason for excluding chiefs from partisan politics was to ensure that “when we the mortal souls are practising democracy and we do it the wrong way which generates crises, we always have our chiefs to call us to order.”

He expressed regret that in recent times there had been calls for an amendment of the Constitution to allow chiefs to participate in partisan politics, which he did not support, since it was important for chiefs to play an oversight role over politicians whenever they went astray.

Mr Nketia said a major concern of government was that the chieftaincy institution, which was supposed to help in the maintenance of peace in the country, was unfortunately becoming the arena where peace was disturbed.

He said governments in power often ended up spending monies that could have been used for development on settling chieftaincy disputes.

He added that there were many chieftaincy disputes in the country and that government had deployed soldiers to maintain peace, saying that protecting the chieftaincy institution meant granting chiefs the freedom to address their internal problems amicably.

The Akwamuhene, Odeneho Kwafo Akoto, who was a special guest, said there was a strong link among the people of Akwamu, Anlo, and Ashanti, which was older than the modern states, and was bonded in respect and mutual understanding — ties that made them distinct towns united in spirit and purpose.

The Awoamefia of Anlo, Togbui Sri, commended the government for securing the World Bank-funded West Africa Coastal Areas (WACA) Project to address tidal wave devastation in communities along the coast, adding that the 150-million-dollar project was being delayed.

Togbui Sri also thanked the government for reviving the Blekusu Sea Defence Project, which he said would protect communities along the coast, and for the ongoing engineering works on the Keta Port Project.