Annual report on the social and economic progress of the people of the Gold Coast.

Date:
[1934]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the social and economic progress of the people of the Gold Coast. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/96 (page 6)
    CHAPTER II. GOVERNMENT. The Gold Coast Colony is administered by the Governor, assisted by an Executive Council constituted by Letters Patent and Royal Instructions dated the 23rd May, 1925 and composed of the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Treasurer, the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services and the Secretary for Native Affairs. The laws of the Colony are made by the Governor, with the advice and consent of a Legislative Council constituted by the Gold Coast Colony (Legislative Council) Order-in-Council, 1925 and consisting of the Governor, fifteen official members and fourteen unofficial members. It contains an elective element, provision being made for the election of six head chiefs as provincial members, three municipal members to represent the towns of Accra, Cape Coast and Sekondi respectively, a mercantile member and a mining member. Ashanti, the Northern Territories and Togoland under British Mandate are administered by the Governor who is also the competent law-making authority. The system of government generally may be described as a mixture of direct and indirect rule with a steady bias towards the latter. The native administration is almost entirely in the hands of the native chiefs, who are assisted in their respective spheres of authority by their councils of elders who are generally representative of various sections of the community. The chiefs are responsible to Government through the District Commissioners. Native tribunals presided over by chiefs form part of the Colony's judicial system, and their judgments are subject to appeal to the Supreme Court, and from the Supreme Court appeals may finally reach the Privy Council. In executive and constitutional issues the decisions of a State Council, as the highest native authority is called, are subject to appeal to the Governor, whose decision is final. The Gold Coast Colony is divided into three provinces, central, western and eastern, the last including the southern section of that part of Togoland under British mandate, and each province is in charge of a Provincial Commissioner, assisted by District and Assistant District Commissioners. Ashanti is divided into districts each under a District Commissioner who exercises limited powers of jurisdiction. The dependency is administered by a Chief Commissioner assisted by an Assistant Chief Commissioner. The protectorate of the Northern Territories is administered in a similar manner.