Story: Kofi Yeboah
TWO legislators of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have described the ex-gratia award recommended by the Chinery-Hesse Committee for ex-Presidents as scandalous and called on the two former presidents to reject the offer in order to salvage their personal image and that of politicians from public ridicule.
Expressing shock at the quantum of the ex-gratia and the manner it was passed by Parliament, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Okere, Mr Dan Botwe, pledged to join forces with any group to stall the deal, while the MP for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, Mr P. C. Appiah-Ofori, threatened to take legal action to stop its implementation.
The comments made by the two NPP legislators are in sharp contrast to those expressed by many leading NPP activists since the brouhaha over the ex-gratia for the former presidents began.
“I’m a politician of conviction and I’ll speak against anything I consider to be wrong,” Mr Botwe told the Daily Graphic in an interview yesterday, adding that the issue had nothing to do with whether one was a member of the NPP or the NDC.
The former General Secretary of the NPP and one-time its aspiring presidential candidate said anyone who contested for the presidency had everything he needed and that the presidency was not a platform for acquiring wealth.
He said he had always criticised former President Rawlings for staying at his current Ridge residence in Accra when he (Rawlings) had his own house to live in and so he did not understand why former President Kufuor should be given two houses when he (Kufuor) also had his own house.
Mr Botwe questioned the rationale for paying ex-gratia as a token of appreciation for a former President who willingly offered himself, without coercion from anybody, to render service to the nation.
He said he could not understand why such quantum of ex-gratia should be thought of in the first place at a time when there were millions of Ghanaians wallowing in poverty.
Mr Botwe said the whole idea sent wrong signals to the public that politicians were only out to make personal gains.
He challenged the two ex-presidents, as men of honour, to reject the ex-gratia award and urged Ghanaians to demand that decision from them, even if the package remained law.
“It’s a bad law and it should be overturned,” he remarked.
Commenting on the issue on JOY FM, an Accra-based radio station, Mr Appiah-Ofori, the anti-corruption crusader, denied knowledge of the Chinery-Hesse Committee Report having been approved by Parliament.
“Who is saying that it has been approved by Parliament? Who is that criminal? Who is that thief?” he asked in an angry tone.
Mr Appiah-Ofori further wanted to know who had moved the motion for the report on the floor of the House and who had seconded it.
“Ghana belongs to all of us,” he said, pointing out that there was the need to protect the interest of the state for the sake of posterity.
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