Former MP for Tamale Central Inusah Fuseini has advised the President Nana Addo to appoint the First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo as special advisor, if the former wants the latter to benefit from the public resources by way of payment.
Mr. Fuseini was reacting to assertion by Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah that the 7th Parliament has approved recommendation made by Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu’s Emolument Committee in 2019, which will allow First and Second Ladies to enjoy privileges and emoluments as Cabinet Ministers.
He said as ranking member on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in the 7th Parliament, he had not seen any document in the nature as being propagated by the Information Minister and the spokespersons of the government.
He said if the report had come to parliament in which the names of the President’s wife and the Vice President’s wife were included as part of the recommendations for the approval of salaries, emoluments and privileges of the executive, it would not escaped “our eyes because of the gigantic illegality and unconstitutionality involve”, advising the Information Minister to tarry slowly in his pronouncements as that portrays parliament as weak institution in the chains of governance institutions.
“If the President wants his wife to enjoy money from the public resources by way of appointment, then the President can appoint her as special advisor to the President and that could entitle her to payment”
“Why would the President not be satisfied with the advice being given by his wife in the bedroom but wants his wife to be paid to give him an advice, or is it an attempt to lift whatever advice being given him in the bedroom on their pillows, to official assignments, I can’t get it” Mr. Fuseini wondered.
He said Ghanaians were clear in their mind that they did not intend to include spouses of the President and his Vice in the expenditure of public resources when the 1992 constitution was being framed adding that “it is obvious Ghanaians abhor this obnoxious attempt to dissipate public resources”
My understanding is that their position will be in coterminous with the cabinet minister, are the two functioning as cabinet ministers, he asked.
He told Noel Nutsugah, host of Statecraft on Zylofon 102.1 FM that Article 71 talks of a class or category of public servants whose salaries and emoluments are to be determine by a committee set up by the president in determining same while he argued that Article 71 is a closed shop that does not admit of additions.
The attempt to smuggle this recommendation into parliament is not only illegal but disingenuous, unconstitutional, scandalous and shameful, he stressed.
“The unconstitutionality and the illegality is apparent on the face of what Akufo Addo’s government is seeking to do with this ‘issue’.
The Emolument Committee
The five-member committee was set up in June 2019 by President Akufo-Addo to make recommendations to him and to Parliament on the salaries and allowances payable, and the facilities and privileges available to article 71 office holders.
Under the chairmanship of Prof. Ntiamoa-Baidu and which also had former Majority Leader and former Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Abraham Ossei Aidooh, the Chief Executive of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, Dr Edward Kwapong, the current Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency, Dr Eric Oduro Osae, and a former Managing Director, Donewell Life Insurance Co. Ltd, Mrs Stella Segbawu, the committee had two terms of reference.
They were charged to make recommendations in respect of emoluments and other privileges for article 71 office holders, as specified under the Constitution; and also to examine any other relevant matter which the Committee deemed appropriate to its work.
