A proposal has been tabled for the establishment of a permanent office to be tasked with the responsibility of looking into salaries and emoluments of presidents of Ghana.
A member of the committee that fixed the ex-gratia for former President Kufuor, Fred Oware, who mooted the idea was hopeful the body will bring to an end, the back and forth with former presidents’ emoluments.
“To forestall this, perhaps we need to have a permanent office to take charge of this responsibility,” he told Joy News on Monday.
Various committees on presidential emoluments recommended, among other benefits, that a former president should be given at least a house. However, President Mills says it's time for the taxpayer to rather pay rent allowance to former heads of state instead of the state building a house for them. He is proposing that 20 per cent of the salary of the president should be used to pay his rent every month.
Deputy Information Minister Samuel Okudzeto explained to Joy News the decision by President Mills is the best for the nation, adding that it will reduce the cost of catering for ex-presidents.
Urging that the issue should not be treated as an NPP and NDC affair, Mr Fred Oware said Article 71 of the constitution needs to be amended before the president’s proposal could be legal.
However, he said: “What he (Mills) has not said is whether the sum total to be paid as an allowance would even be more than necessary in buying a house - nobody knows that.”
Mr Oware, who is the 1st Vice Chairman of the NPP, said the Chinery Hesse Committee which recommended the emoluments of former President Kufuor took a number of issues into consideration to arrive at its recommended benefits for the ex-president.
“We took into consideration some governance issues; we looked at Liberia, we looked at Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, we looked at Kenya, and we think that if a president has peace of mind; that after office, there is life for him, and that his condition of life would not be altered to his disadvantage, he probably will focus on the job without dipping his fingers into the national kitty.”
Victor Brobbey, a research fellow at CDD-Ghana, supported the call for permanent office to be established to look into the salaries and emoluments of the president.
Inasmuch as ad hoc committees for the emoluments were not recommendable, according to Mr Brobbey, the payment of monthly allowance is neither the best option.
He also wondered whether Ghanaians should be concerned about the house of former presidents.
“Invariably, the people that become the president of Ghana already have their houses; we really should think of compensating them in ways other than housing…but to build him a new one or to pay for a new one, I am not sure that is the right place to go.”
Story by Isaac Essel/Ghana/Myjoyonline.com
http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201110/75325.php
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