Annual report on Northern Rhodesia / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1961]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Northern Rhodesia / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    112/158 (page 102)
    property or income, and residential qualifications. At the end of 1961 proposals for the review of the constitution were under consideration by the British Government. PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION The responsibility for co-ordinating Government policy in the provinces and districts devolves upon the provincial administration. The Territory is divided into the Barotseland Protectorate, where a Resident Commis¬ sioner is stationed, the Western Province under a Senior Provincial Commissioner and six other provinces each in charge of a Provincial Commissioner. Subordinate to these are the District Commissioners entrusted with the administration of the 44 districts into which Barotse¬ land and the provinces are divided. The duties of the provincial administration are extremely varied. The Provincial and District Commissioners are responsible, in conjunction with the Police, for the maintenance of law and order. Other important aspects of a District Commissioner’s work are liaison with native and local authorities and the supervision and hearing of appeals from native courts. District Commissioners and District Officers are also ex officio magistrates and as such deal with a considerable proportion of the criminal and civil cases arising in their areas. The provincial administration officers are the principal executive officers of Government in their areas. Without interfering in technical details they are generally responsible for the efficient conduct of public affairs and Provincial and District teams have been set up under their chairmanship to act as informal consultative bodies for the shaping of policies, and schemes of local application. LOCAL GOVERNMENT—RURAL AREAS The traditional responsibility of a chief within his own area has been built upon and developed into a system of local government with powers defined by statute. Each chief is himself recognised as a Subordinate Native Authority in his own area with certain powers relating to the regu¬ lation of matters of local importance, but subject to a Superior Native Authority, which usually embraces all the subordinate chiefs’ areas within the tribal area. A Superior Native Authority is normally constituted by the Senior or Paramount Chief of the tribe, and his tribal council. The tribal council is composed of the subordinate chiefs and certain hereditary or traditional councillors, but the practice is growing of including numbers of nominated and elected councillors. This development is encouraged and in this way the growth of popular representation is closely linked to the important traditional element in African rural life.