Minority Chief, Muntaka Mubarak
• Government is set to pay salaries for first and second ladies
• This follows the formalization of a report by an emolument committee set up in 2019
• NDC MPs believes that it is against the constitution
The government will have a new case to contend with at the Supreme Court as the Minority caucus in parliament has filed a suit to seek clarification from the apex court on the constitutionality of the decision to pay salaries to the first and second ladies.
Rockson Dafeamekpor, member of the minority caucus said that the government acted illegally in formalizing the payment of emoluments to wives of the president and his vice and will seek redress at the Supreme Court.
In an interview with the media on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, Dafeamekpor said the Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mohammed was in the process of filing the writ.
He said “as we speak, I’m in the process of filing a writ at the Supreme Court. Hopefully, tomorrow by this time the writ would have been filed. We want to interrogate the issues, the committee had no mandate to make the kind of recommendation they did.”
He offered his view that the works of the emolument committee which was set up in 2019 did not include deciding on salary benefits for the spouses of the president and his vice.
“The terms of reference of the committee were to review the emoluments of Article 71 office-holders. They didn’t tell them to go and review the condition of services of a person who does not fall within Article 71 officeholders.”
He indicated that parliament could have “insisted for them to take the report back, amend and relay. But the sponsors of the report were adamant. The fact that they were adamant doesn’t mean parliament approved of it. Parliament approved what was legitimate as contained in the report.
“So, if the president says today that because it went through parliament he’s giving the go-ahead for the recommendations to be implemented, the appropriate quarter to tackle that will be the supreme court., to determine whether or not the spouses of the president and the vice president are contemplated as Article 71 public holders as ascribed to it in the constitution,” he added.
The new arrangement will see the spouses of the first and second gentlemen officially being paid salaries which is a departure from the previous practice of paying them allowances.
Earlier reports had suggested President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had unilaterally decided to pay his wife Rebecca Akufo-Addo and the wife of his vice, Samira Bawumia, salaries but Information Minister, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah has clarified that the approval was done by the previous parliament.
“The President does approve salaries and benefits for the Executive. Under Article 71, the First Lady and Second Lady are not office holders so no one can determine their benefits under that article.
“However, a committee only recommended that an arrangement for the spouses be made formal and that received approval from Parliament,” he indicated. Oppong-Nkrumah referenced some practices in the past where the allowances for the spouses of first and second ladies were increased by the executive arm of government.