LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE GOLD COAST
| Date | 01 July 1955 |
| Published date | 01 July 1955 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1955.tb00098.x |
| Author | A. St. J. J. Hannigan |
116
JOURNAL
OF
AFRICAN
ADMINISTRATION
be no solutions if there were no
problems;
and
that
is perhaps worth advocating
if only in
the
interests of orderly progress. A village council recognising
the
village
head
as formal chairman (although his actual function might be carried
out
by a younger educated person)
and
having one representative each from
the various age-grades (say three or four in all), where
they
exist,
and
having
the
rest
of
the
members elected would
not
be a
bad
council.
If
four representa-
tives of traditional authorities in a council of
say
twelve to
twenty
persons can
make for orderly progress in
the
village,
that
would
not
be a price to pay.
Finally, if local government
development-as
indeed
any
social development
-is
acontinuous process, there
may
come a time when traditional authorities
will no longer be necessary, or exist in quite different forms.
But
that
stage
has
not
yet
been reached, except perhaps in
the
wishful imagination of those
who would like to see our respectable traditional authorities disappear too
soon!
Local government is a political development,
and
of all things political
development needs a
past
without
which it
may
have no solid roots.
" Any civilisation, however primitive, in Africa as in Europe, has a life of
its own.
It
consists of people who have grown up with certain ideas, certain
ties, obligations, expectations
and
acertain relation with their own government.
Any sudden
and
violent change in such acivilization, or its method of govern-
ment, is like
the
dislocation of a
human
body.
It
breaks
what
was a living
and
homogenous social unit, possibly crude
and
simple in form,
but
self-
respecting
and
energetic,
into
a mere scattering of human units, despondent
and
usually
corrupt."
(Cary:
British and West African, p. 54).
LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
IN THE
GOLD
COAST
By A. St.
j.
j.
Hannigan.
T
HE
Gold Coast Local Government Ordinance has been in force for almost
three years,
and
it is now possible to take some assessment of
the
progress made,
and to note some of
the
difficulties which have arisen.
The Gold Coast based its local government system on
that
of Britain, with,
however, considerable modifications necessitated by the different environ-
ment. District, local and urban councils have
beei1
set up throughout the
country, with
the
larger local authorities (e.g. district councils) doing the work
of an English rural or urban area.
The
following internal differences
may
be noted between the English
and
the
Gold Coast systems. Firstly, provision is made in the Ordinance for
the
election
of traditional members,
that
is
the
representatives of the chiefs,I
and
by this
means a link is retained with
the
old system of native rule through the native
authorities. Secondly,
the
method of setting up a council is different from
the
English system. In
the
Gold Coast each council is created by a separate
instrument
which enumerates
the
functions applicable to
the
council", the
powers varying from instrument to instrument. This method was employed
in contradistinction to
the
English method of defining by
statute
the powers
applicable to a particular class of local authority, although in practice nearly
all
the
local authorities have been given
the
same powers.
The
external differences,
that
is, those dealing with the relationship between
the local
authority
and
the central government, are due to
the
different type
of central administrative machinery employed by
the
Gold Coast. The Gold
Coast is divided up into regions, each with a chief regional officer in charge,
---~-_._----_
...-
tGold Coast Local Government Ordinance, 5.10.
2Gnld Coast Local Govermnellt
Ordinance
5.5 (1) (g).
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