Mensah Thompson is the Executive Director of ASEPA
• ASEPA has expressed unhappiness with the announcement that the spouses of the presidential officials are returning all the allowances they have been paid since they came into office
• That said, ASEPA says the monies will be beneficial in other respects
• One of those areas will be to supporting the Free SHS policy of government
Since the First Lady and the Second Lady are bent on returning all the allowances they have been paid since they came into office, we will just channel those monies into providing food for students in senior high schools, asserts ASEPA.
The Executive Director of the Alliance for Social Equity And Public Accountability, Mensah Thompson, explained that if the two women feel that because of the public outcry that accompanied the announcement to move their benefits from allowances to salaries equivalent to cabinet ministers, they want to totally reject whatever money comes to them, it is equally good news.
He said that, that money would be put to other uses such as in feeding students who form part of the Free Senior High School initiative by the current government.
“All of us have been patient for the government only for the government to pass behind and say, ‘I’m not going to increase public sector salaries but I’m going to upgrade my wife’s salary from an allowance to a full salary as a cabinet minister. That is what the public outburst is about and so if the First Lady and Second Lady say because of the public outburst, now they don’t want the allowance again, then they should refund it; we need it.
“We’ll take the money and use it to buy food and feed the Free SHS students who are now struggling to feed themselves as schools are about to open,” he said.
Mensah Thompson made this known in an interview with GhanaWeb following the news that Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Samira Bawumia had rejected recommendations by the Professor Yaa Ntiamoah Baidoo Committee to have their allowances changed to salaries in the same range as cabinet ministers.
