June 22

WWW.DAILYHERITAGE.COM.GH
DAILY HERITAGE FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018
05
Editorial
Chiefs must not engage in partisan politics
THE 1992 Constitution of
Ghana enjoins chiefs not to take
part in active politics. And it was
not for nothing that the framers
of the constitution explicitly
barred chiefs from dabbling in
partisan politics.
The institution that chiefs represent
is a revered one. They are
the custodians of traditional authority
and ought to be the voice
of their subjects irrespective of
political affiliation.
Politics is described by some as
dirty. Dirty in the sense that it
could get very personal. A man of
great integrity could be denigrated
viciously based on lies by a political
opponent to score cheap political
points.
Chiefs, are therefore, barred
from taking part in active politics
to preserve their image and that
of the chieftaincy institution.
However, some chiefs throw
caution to the wind and violate
the constitution with impunity.
It would be recalled that prior
to the December 7, 2016 elections,
a number of chiefs declared
support for one candidate or the
other. Some actually mounted
campaign platforms to declare
support for their preferred presidential
candidate.
The chief of Akyem Abekwaase
in the Eastern Region,
Nana Akroma Akyeampong II,
was one such chief who declared
support for then President John
Mahama.
The trend has not changed.
Some chiefs have in recent times
been making partisan statements
in support of the New Patriotic
Party administration.
The argument is that chiefs
who want to engage in partisan
politics should abdicate their
stools before doing so.
The DAILY HERITAGE
urges our venerable chiefs not to
engage in partisan politics.
We think the ramifications
could be very bad. In fact, any
subject who holds contrary political
opinion could take on any
chief for endorsing a politician.
Our chiefs should, therefore,
be committed to preserving the
sanctity of the chieftaincy institution
by refraining from partisan
politics.
Jobs galore as Blockchain
Technology lands in Ghana
•Li Bin (middle) with some executive members
ANEW technology that seeks to
develop solutions to challenges
facing nations, the Blockchain
Technology, according to Mr Li
Bin, an associate partner of
Chief Blockchain Union in China is a technology
that guarantees digital trust which can be
applied to address the challenges at different
sections of the country’s supply chain system.
Mr Li Bin, who was speaking to a section of
the Ghanaian media in Accra, said Blockchain
Technology is a decentralised, distributed storage
database system that allows people to write
entries into a record of information, where a
community of users could control how the
record of information is amended and updated.
He said Blockchain technology will increase
jobs and impact standard of living and government
revenue positively.
According to him, Blockchain technology is
fast taking over businesses and sectors relevant
for growth and development. He explained
that the financial sector, health, agriculture,
commerce, real estate sectors among others
could hook onto the Blockchain technology to
speed up their day to day business transactions.
Mr Li Bin also enumerated that trust was a
risk judgement between different parties, and
in the digital world, determining trust often
boiled down to proving identity and proving
authorisation and that Blockchain had passed
the trust test since it provides a powerful ownership
tool that fulfills authentication requirements
of data.
He said since it is a storage and distribution
network, it reduces the risk of centralised corruption
or failures and the issue of hacking is
ruled out completely.
He also explained that the root cause of
risk in businesses, especially in the banking sector
is that all data are stored by the intermediary
agency.
“There is a way to avoid these risks. With
the Blockchain Technology the intermediary
storage is secure, so if it is stored data separately,
then this can effectively solve this problem.
This technology has also gradually gained
attention from the banking and financial industries
due to its safety and convenient.”
He also said the Blockchain technology is
becoming the trend of doing business the easiest
way explaining that “For example, we may
copy a piece of music for you. We can copy a
movie from someone else’s computer. And
something of value like money is no way to
replicate on the internet. If it can be simply
copied, then the social economy will be in disorder.”
He said: “Even when we both don’t know
each other, I am in Ghana and you are in
China. If I want to transfer money at this time,
you can tell me your address directly and I can
transfer it to you, and you can do it without
the assistance of a third party intermediary.”
Mr Li Bin revealed that the Chief
Blockchain Union which is in China had begun
expanding its frontiers into Africa and currently
in Ghana hoping to cover Nigeria, Zimbabwe,
Uganda, Kenya and the whole of
Africa in the next three years.
Speaking on some benefits of Blockchain
Technology for industries and businesses,
Joseph Kalib also Chief Bloackchain Union
partner, noted that the technology was the easiest
way to do business so far and builds trust
and remove intermediaries in businesses.
According to him, there is speed, flexibility
and mobility as far as the use of the technology
in money transfers whilst boosting investments
in Africa.
Joseph Kalib also explained that transactions
on Blockchain would be reshaped and
completed like traditional credits from centralised
institutions.