Professor Ransford Gyampo, an associate professor at the University of Ghana, wants the presidential emoluments committee for Article 71 officeholders to be scrapped with immediate effect.
The decision to put the First and Second Ladies on monthly salaries based on a recommendation by the Professor Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee has been rejected by a cross-section of Ghanaians.
Speaking on The Asaase Breakfast Show with Kojo Mensah on Friday (9 July), Gyampo said: “My conclusion after reading the report was that, it appears to me that the whole idea of setting up a presidential committee of emoluments is bogus and must be abandoned.”
He explained: “… it feeds to a constitutional creation of a class society where some people are described as Article 71 officeholders with fat emoluments that are reviewed all the time and the rest of us are classified as public servants with very low pay.
“Yet we are the ones who work, who train, who teach, who medicate these people to go to that office as Article 71 officeholders. You read the report and you are sad because there has always been a wide disparity between Article 71 office holders and public servants.”
Suit against decision
Meanwhile, two Minority MPs and a Ghanaian citizen have filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court challenging the approval of salaries for the First and Second Ladies of Ghana.
The two MPs, Rockson-NelsonDafeamekpor and Dr Clement Abaasinat Apaak, together with a citizen, Frederick Nii Commey, are seeking eight reliefs in total from the Supreme Court.
The reliefs are first, a declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 71(1) of the 1992 constitution of Ghana, the Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee, appointed by the president under Article 71(1), only had jurisdiction to make recommendations in respect of salaries, allowances payable, facilities and privileges of Article 71 office holders under the 1992 constitution.
Second, it calls for: “A further declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 71(1) of the 1992 constitution of Ghana, the Prof Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee had no jurisdiction, mandate or authority to make any recommendations in respect of salaries, allowances payable, facilities and privileges of persons other than persons specified under Article 71 of the 1992 constitution.”
Third, it demands: “A declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 71(1) of the 1992 Constitution, the Prof Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee exceeded its jurisdiction, mandate and authority when it purported to make recommendations in respect of privileges, facilities, salaries and allowances payable to the First and Second Ladies of the Republic of Ghana.”
It also calls for: “A further declaration that the recommendations of the committee, to the extent that it pertains to the First and Second Ladies of the Republic of Ghana, are null, void and of no effect.”
Fifth, it demands “a declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of the constitution” of 1992, “spouses of the president and the vice-president are not Article 71 office holders for the purposes of receipt of wages and emoluments”.
It calls further for “an order declaring the recommendations in respect of privileges, facilities, salaries and allowances payable to the First and Second Ladies of the Republic of Ghana as unconstitutional and void”, together with “an order restraining the President of the Republic of Ghana or any other arm, ministry, department or agency of the executive, from implementing any recommendations of the Prof Ntiamoah-Baidu Committee which pertains to the First and Second Ladies of the Republic of Ghana”.
Finally, it requests “any further order(s) or direction(s) as this Honourable Court may deem necessary”.
Lawyers of the applicants are at the registry of the Supreme Court to file the action.
A five-member emoluments committee, which was set up in June 2019 by President Nana Akufo-Addo, recommended the said allowance, among other things.
Fred Dzakpata
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