Ex-gratia: Na Who Cause Am?

A few days ago the government of Ghana was said to have released an amount of about 40 million Ghana Cedis for the payment of Ex-gratia to members of the five parliament of the fourth republic. Each member of that parliament has been paid close to 300,000 Ghana new Cedis. This singular act has been met with huge outcry from both the public and private sector and among the Ghanaian populace in general. In as much as this writer would like to hold brief for the payment of end of service benefits to members of parliament because of its constitutional backing, the quantum of this particular payment, however, raises a lot of eyebrows. What is more outrageous is the fact that returning members to the new parliament are also beneficiaries to this payment. What kind of dubious arrangement is that? It is therefore important to delve into the reasons for the dashing out of such a huge amount of money to a particular group of people at this particular time when the president himself had admitted, a few weeks ago, that the country was close to broke and as a result was forced to increase petrol prices.

First of all, it seems everybody in Ghana is angry with the parliamentarians, as if they have dipped their hands into the coffers of the country and made away with this gargantuan amount. Who in Ghana can refuse this windfall when it comes one's way? Moreover, they are not the only beneficiaries of this gargantuan rip-off. Others include, all former minister and their deputies, MCE and DCEs and the president himself as a former vice-president. The point is that the parliamentarians did not just take the money by themselves but rather it was given to them by a higher authority, that is the executive of the land. We as a nation should rather be concerned about why the president of the land at this difficult time would give out such heavy cash to parliamentarians as Ex-gratia? So far the presidency has completely gone mute over the whole issue, letting the poor law-makers take the brunt of the people. It will be proper for us to stop and start asking our so called social democratic president why he has taken such a decision at this particular time in our history.

It must be recalled that from the heat of the presidential campaign up to now, President Mahama has made it his main occupation to be giving out grandiose to people in order to get him elected as president and later to get people to accept and legitimize him as the sitting president of our dear country. Evidence of this accrue in the free distribution of laptops, four wheel drives and small cars to students, chiefs and female students not to mention the free distribution of monies during the campaign time and buying of votes in NPP strongholds. We are all aware of how the attempt to bribe the clergy with the Israel trip to Jerusalem backfired in his face, making him to come and publicly lied to the whole nation that his government had seek sponsorship from private companies for the trip but refused to name the sponsors. The list of people that Mahama has tried to influence with money include even some NPP gurus and also some top journalists in the country (names withheld but it is your own guess). Here is a president who believes that everything has a price and so he can buy his way to the presidency. He might be right , but the point is that his actions also have a price and for sure he is going to pay for them sooner or later.

The release of this huge amount of money to the MPs at this particular moment is just another attempt by Mahama to use money to get people to give him some form of legitimacy in the face of the impending election petition case that confronts him at the supreme court. It is an attempt by him to get both the opposition NPP and the majority NDC in parliament to be seen as defending a government directive and as such recognizing him as president at this crucial time with the election petition case is about to real kick off. The timing of the award of the ex-gratia might appear to be wrong to many people but 'Sly' Mahama could not have chosen a better point in time to fit into his diabolic agenda.

The public need to be reminded that the payment of Ex-gratia which is in fulfillment of article 71 of the constitution does not say that such huge amounts of money should be dashed out to parliamentarians after every four years. It is the president that has agreed to give this huge amount to them at this very testing times of our democracy. It is Mahama that is insensitive to the hardships facing the ordinary Ghanaian. It is Dramani who does not care how the public purse is managed so long as the spending will secure the presidency for him. Here is a president who is only interested in spending the taxpayers money on scam projects like the infamous STX project, tree planting and guinea fowl projects and, piling the level of overspending at the presidency alone to over 350 million Ghana cedis with nothing to show for it. How can it be explained that spending on capacity building alone jumped from Ghc750,000 in 2011 to GHc112 million in 2012. A so called social democrat indeed! A leader who is always plotting cunning ways to loot the country thru his friends and political cronies. The Irony of it all is that it is the majority of this poor downtrodden people who are suffering today as a result of the actions of a corrupt leadership that will stand to support and vote for them again when the time comes. However, no matter how long it takes, the eyes of these poor working class people shall one day get open. You never know, maybe sooner than expected.

The NPP, the main opposition political party in Ghana today must come out to condemn this insensitive and vampire-like directive by the president. The party must be seen to be on the side of the ordinary people of Ghana. The party's position on this ex-gratia case needs to be made very clear to the good people of Ghana, best thru a press conference. The stand of the NPP MPs, both present and former, cannot be allowed to be seen or taken by the general public as that of the party. The party is much bigger than these greedy MPs and the leadership of the party has to make this clear if they are serious about ruling again anytime soon. Anything short of this is to commit political suicide.

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