The Parliamentary Select Committee on Chieftaincy, Culture and Religious Affairs has appealed to the government to urgently pay all outstanding allowances owed to traditional rulers.

The committee said the government had, to date, failed to pay the third and fourth quarter allowances, stressing that although the amounts involved were modest, withholding the entitlements undermined the chieftaincy institution.

“The allowance is not enough, but we cannot deprive our chiefs of the small amount we are supposed to pay them.

We are pleading with the President and the Minister of Finance to pay our chiefs the third-quarter allowance, and even more importantly, the fourth quarter, which has already elapsed,” the Chairman of the Committee, Dr Fred Kyei Asamoah, said at a press briefing in Accra last Monday.

The press briefing followed a three-day strategic engagement with institutions under the committee’s oversight, including the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts.

The engagement was aimed at strengthening parliamentary oversight, promoting inclusive governance and identifying innovative ways of enhancing the national benefits derived from chieftaincy, culture and religious affairs.

Inadequate funding

Dr Asamoah, who is also the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Ofinso North, noted that traditional authorities remained central to the country’s development, revealing that nearly 80 per cent of lands in the country were held in trust by chiefs, while a significant number of health facilities and other social infrastructure had been established through the support of traditional institutions.

He argued that adequately resourcing the chieftaincy institution would strengthen governance and reduce conflicts, which often came at a high cost to the state in both human lives and financial resources.