Are Ghana's Chiefs Coming or Going?

So the Okyenhene has called on the US Government to assist with mining reclamation (‘Okyenhene Lobbies US Government to Support Reclamation’ http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=291594). A self-proclaimed environmentalist, the Okyenhene, the paramount chief of the Akyem Abuakwa State in Ghana and one of the country’s most powerful traditional leaders, has long lobbied the government to double its efforts to eradicate illegal mining. He has drawn particular attention to the environmental impact of galamsey (unlicensed gold mining) activities in his jurisdiction, pleading for policymakers in attendance at meetings held at the regional and national levels to remove galamsey operators from ‘his’ land. These would be reasonable requests if there were not excavators and other mining equipment on the front lawn of the Okyenhene’s palace. But when the Okyenhene went international with the issue, making an appeal for assistance in a meeting held at the US State Department in Washington DC, everything changed. It more importantly begs the question: what do Ghana’s chiefs want?

Although it is sin to talk about Ghana’s traditional leaders negatively in public forums, is it really in the interest of Ghana’s citizens for the government to continue circumnavigate the chieftaincy institution in policymaking exercises, avoiding upsetting traditional leaders, and failing to hold them to account in cases where it is warranted? It has become public knowledge that chiefs are involved in some capacity with small-scale mining. This is not to say that the Okyenhene himself is bankrolling small-scale miners directly but for him to play ignorant when questioned about galamsey, implying that he has no knowledge of why illegal gold mining activity is increasing, and specifically how traditional leaders are fuelling this growth. The reality is that many of Ghana’s chiefs simply want more resource rents, and will do anything to deflect discussion and criticism away from their actions. Whilst the US State Department is unlikely to get involved with mine reclamation in Ghana, the fact that the Okyenhene feels he has the right to even initiate, on his own, dialogue with an international partner, and telling a story which barely captures the truth about a phenomenon – the proliferation of unlicensed artisanal mining – in an effort to mobilize assistance, is mind-boggling.

More significantly, it raises the question of why the Government of Ghana insists on continuing to involve chiefs in, and at times making them the centrepiece of, local economic development. Specifically, if Ghana’s traditional leaders have no intention of using resource revenues for the benefit of communities, as evidence pointing to the hoarding of timber and mine royalties suggests, and have openly declared that ‘their’ share of allocated revenue should not have to be filtered down to their jurisdictions (‘Chiefs should not lead development projects’ http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/blogs/blog.article.php?blog=1995&ID=1000006128), why are they increasingly being featured in revenue decentralization and community development exercises? The EITI has even called for chiefs to be held accountable (‘Ghana: Hold Chiefs Accountable’ http://allafrica.com/stories/201004160833.html), so why can government not act? It seems that many of Ghana’s chiefs have one foot in the modern era and the other in the sixteenth century, when perhaps they were considered de facto land owners, shuffling back and forth when it is convenient for them.

It is a bit ironic that the ‘problem’ which the Okyenhene has asked American government officials to help him resolve is largely his own doing. The view here is that the failure of paramount chiefs such as the Okyenhene and the Asantehene to properly decentralize royalties earned from large-scale mining activities has mobilized ‘lesser’ chiefs based at the grassroots. Desperate for money, these chiefs have turned to local galamsey operators, whom they have sponsored and from whom they now generate significant amounts of cash. It could very well be a case of the Okyenhene wanting a piece of the action as well but that his centralized paramount position inhibits effective infiltration of existing sponsorship/ore-sharing arrangements between ‘lesser’ chiefs and galamsey operators. He, much like his colleagues, is forced to rely on ‘palace gangs’, who, equally disconnected from the realities on the ground, have not really put the Okyenhene in a better position to benefit from the galamsey activity burgeoning in his jurisdiction right before his eyes.

There is an important ‘takeaway’ message here: When is the Government of Ghana going to realize that the country’s chiefs are not vanguards of development. Any responsibility assigned to chiefs in the context of development, in particular, revenue sharing, should, therefore, be reconsidered.