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Mr Asum Ahensan, Minister of Chieftaincy and Culture, has stressed the need for active participation of the chieftaincy institution in the country's political decentralisation system. The country stands to derive a lot of benefits from the diverse rich experiences and expertise of the current crop of traditional rulers, if conscious efforts are made to actively involve them in the local governance system, he said. Mr Ahensan was speaking at a consultative workshop organised by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development on the "review of the decentralization and local governance" for members of the National House of Chiefs (NHC) in Kumasi on Thursday. "Review of 20 years of decentralisation and the assembly system of local governance", was the theme and provided the opportunity for members of the House to contribute to the review process. The Minister said chieftaincy had played important role in governance and the active involvement of chiefs would not only enrich the relations between traditional rulers and the local government structures but would also promote effective and efficient governance. Mr Joseph Yileh-Chireh, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said Ghanaians had a rich heritage of traditional governance. The challenge, however, has been how to take advantage of this rich resource to achieve a harmonious balance at the local level. Chiefs, he noted, have since the implementation of the current decentralisation system made their views known on various platforms on how to strengthen and improve the assembly system so as to maximize the contributions of chiefs. Mr Yileh-Chireh said the draft guidelines on managing relations between local and traditional authorities at the district level, fashioned with active participation of chiefs last year, would be finalised and applied as part of the reforms. The Minister pointed out that local governance was so fundamental to the lives of the people and for that matter it was imperative that every citizen took interest in it. Naa Professor John S. Nabila, President of the NHC, said the house composed of various professionals with varied experiences and that the Ministry could count on their support to ensure an effective and efficient decentralisation process. Dr Esther Ofei Aboagye, Director of the Institute of Local Government, noted the increasing cynicism in the local assembly system. She noted that even though there has been an important achievement over the last 20 years in the areas of awareness creation, there are a lot of challenges facing the effective local administration in the country. Dr Aboagye mentioned the continued influence of the central government in the activities of local authorities, reluctance of some government agencies to entrust control of their activities to the assemblies and the non involvement of the assemblies in some selected projects such as the National Health Insurance Scheme and the National Youth Employment Programme as some of the challenges.