'EX-GRATIA RECIPE FOR DISASTER' (P.1) 20-01-09

Story: Kofi Yeboah
A LECTURER at the Department of Sociology of the University of Cape Coast, Mr Joseph Kingsley Adjei, has stated that the quantum of ex-gratia for former presidents is a recipe for political tension and coups d’etat.
He said apart from raising the stake in the competition for the presidency and other political offices, some military officers who enjoyed small benefits after long years of service might be tempted to take over power under the pretext of saving the economy from dissipation.
“We are gradually turning our politics into an arena for making wealth and this is not good. The honour accompanying the ex-gratia award is being taken away under such circumstances,” Mr Adjei observed, and called for a review of the package to make it moderate and unnecessarily material.
Commenting on the proposed ex-gratia award for former Presidents in the wake of public criticism of the package recommended by the Chinery-Hesse Committee and approved by Parliament, Mr Adjei said the package was such that politicians would do everything, including vote rigging, violence and insults, to get power.
He said in every society people who served in leadership positions made a lot of sacrifices and so there was nothing wrong in honouring them, adding that a society that did not honour its leaders was not worth dying for.
Mr Adjei, however, expressed concern over the size of the proposed ex-gratia for former presidents in relation to the general well-being of society.
“If we go begging for loans and asking for aid and give so much to our ex-presidents, nobody will give us the money,” he remarked.
He said if by divine grace and with the prospects of oil the country’s economy improved, then the package could be reviewed for the better.
He said the award of such huge ex-gratia “makes the government the executive committee of the bourgeoisie class” whose interest was to get richer at the expense of the poor.
He said the recommendations for the huge ex-gratia fed into the country’s culture of reducing everything into wealth.
Mr Adjei observed that the only thing that Members of Parliament (MPs) appeared to agree on without debate was something in their personal interest.