By Razak Baba.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr. Simon Osei-Mensah has entreated Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs), to accord the needed respect and recognition to all stakeholders especially traditional authorities, Assembly Members, and Opinion Leaders.
He noted with concern that some of the Assemblies are sharply divided on partisan lines, but this does not augur well for a smooth and peaceful administration. Mr. Osei-Mensah made the point in a message at a Capacity Building session in Kumasi for MMDCEs in the Ashanti region on Conflict Management and Reporting.
Razak Baba reports that the National Peace Council by law is mandated to do among other things, initiate and support training and capacity building programmes for relevant stakeholders.
It is based on this mandate that the Council in collaboration with the Department of Peace and Development Studies at the University of Cape Coast with support from the Danish Embassy, in efforts to promote sustainable peace, national cohesion and development, organized the training to build capacities of MMDCEs.
The workshop aimed at improving the capacities of the MMDCEs on conflict resolution techniques to enable them to manage and speak on conflict issues from informed positions, to enhance peace in their areas of jurisdiction.
It was also to empower them to integrate conflict sensitivity in their development plans.
A Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cape Coast, Dr. Patrick Osei-Kufuor, who was the resource person, took the participants through the concepts of conflict and peace and their implications for development, analyzing conflicts, their sources, triggers, causes and consequences and identifying conflict drivers and tools for preventing, managing and resolving conflicts in their jurisdictions, and the Vigilantism and Related Offences Act.
The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the National Peace Council, Right Reverend Christopher Nyarko Andam, said the Ashanti Region remains vulnerable to intermittent communal violence, chieftaincy disputes, electoral violence, vigilantism, youth clashes, demonstration, radicalism and land resource conflict particularly in mining areas.
”Solutions to these problems require the collective efforts of all stakeholders to help fight these crimes and conflicts in the region.”
A Deputy Coordinating Director at the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council, Madam Dorcas Baidoo, in a message from the Ashanti Regional Minister said, ” the need for peace in Ghana has never been more apparent”.
The Deputy Ashanti Regional Commander, DCOP Kwasi Akomeah Apraku and General Officer Commanding the Central Command of the Ghana Army, Brigadier General Joseph Appor both assured the MMDCEs of their support to ensure peace in the region.