According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Gamey and Gamey Group, Mr Austin Akufo Gamey, the persistent and tireless efforts of the State in getting the various security agencies, the National Peace Council, the Law Courts and the people of Bawku and its environs to resolve the conflict without success, needed a non- partisan and neutral media­tion process to engage the feuding factions.

Mr Gamey spoke to the Ghanaian Times on Saturday during a gradua­tion ceremony of the 24th cohorts of Professional Executive Masters (PEM) of Alternative Dispute Reso­lution (ADR) programme held on the theme “ADR: The Key To Sustain­able National Peace, Wealth Creation and Enhanced Productivity.”

While he bemoaned the age-long allodia rights and chieftaincy disputes which had denied the community and the people of Bawku a deserving livelihood and economic development of the area, Mr Gamey believed that when given the chance, a profes­sional mediation process would help facilitate a peaceful resolu­tion of the conflict between the Mamprusi and the Kusasi ethnic groups of the area.

“I have followed closely the ongoing Bawku crisis which has resulted in many needless deaths, massive suffering and death of pregnant women, deprivation of children of their basic rights including right to school, stagnation of econom­ic activities and its effect on national cohesion and peace,” he stated.

Mr Gamey was therefore of the conviction that, profession­al mediators needed to be given the chance to help in facilitat­ing a peaceful resolution of the crisis adding, “we are optimistic that with the necessary logis­tical support and goodwill from both communities, governmental, national and international stake­holders, peace can be restored in Bawku through the use of creative and innovative conflict resolution interventions.”

In furtherance of the use of ADR tools to help resolve the conflict, what Mr Gamey deemed prerequisite to the mediation process were absolute void of political interference and also the acceptance by the parties to co-operate during and after the Pulse Discovery Facilitated Media­tion process.

The Pulse process, he explained were preparing the parties for a conversation, uncovering the circum­stances leading to the issues, learning the significance of the matter to both parties, searching for possibilities and available options for resolution and explaining a plan of action.

A Justice of the Court of Appeal, Irene Charity Larbi who was the Guest of Honour said the Court-Con­nected ADR was critical to the future of justice delivery in Ghana for which reason the Judicial Service had over the years, sought to make greater use of the concept of ADR in the judicial process. She disclosed that, since 2005, the Judicial Service had worked to integrate ADR into the core prac­tice of jurisprudence from which the courts had benefited greatly.

“Given the place of ADR in the judicial process, the much lamented backlog of cases that plagued justice delivery in the country could be reduced while the use of ADR would also free up the court time to focus on the truly intractable cases that must be litigated,” Justice Larbi said.

A total of 29 students with diverse careers in banking, human resource management, law, medicine, media, school administration, security ser­vices, traditional rulers, lecturers and industrial relations officers underwent the 31-week training programme or­ganised in collaboration with Universi­ty of Virgin Islands in the USA.