Former UN Senior Advisor, Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah
Former UN Senior Advisor Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah has lashed out at suggestions that the First and Second Ladies should refund allowances paid them with interests.
The suggestions emanated from certain quarters following a decision by the wives of the President and Vice President to refund all monies received since 2017 when they assumed their de facto roles.
For First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo, public conversation on the matter had been laced with “extremely negative opinions” and so she was refunding GHS899,097.84, which is the total amount received as allowances since her husband became President of Ghana.
But some, notably the Minority in Parliament, are asking her and the Second Lady to pay the interests the money would have accrued were it to have been deposited in an interest-bearing account.
They also want the Auditor-General to begin processes of probing her accounts to ascertain if she has enough to offset the entire allowances.
But speaking on Midday Live on TV3 on Tuesday, July 13, Prof Agyeman-Duah said the suggestions for the First and Second Ladies to refund their allowances with interests are the “most ridiculous”.
“That’s the most ridiculous view I have ever heard. It is most ridiculous whoever proposes that,” he said.
“Look they have been even ‘statewoman-like’. The way they have demonstrated is the honourable thing to do.
“So, for anybody to go on and say, look, pay interest on it is very ridiculous. We can’t go to that extent.”