It Was Only Double Payments; Not Double Salary--NDC MP

A leader in the Minority caucus Comfort Doyoe Cudjoe-Ghansah has offered fresh rationalisation on how receiving double salary does not amount to stealing.

"It is money from the executive, money from parliament. It is not double salary" Comfort Cudjoe-Ghansah grew uncomfortable at the charge of stealing.

"Nobody is a thief, me I am not a thief" the NDC MP for Ada East who is also the Second Deputy Minori ty Whip said.

She is one of nine MPs who also served in the Mahama administration as Ministers and are under investigation from the Criminal Investigations Department for stealing.

"It is never true and it can never be true", the embattled NDC MP who was Minister of state in-charge of Social and Allied Institutions told Joy News Tuesday.

Speaking after visiting the CID office where they were cautioned, the second deputy Minority Whip told Joy News' Joseph Ackah-Blay, the monies she received as a minister was a 'top up'.

As at 2013, a minister who is also an MP was paid 14,515 cedis a month while an MP took 12,442 cedis.

An MP's salary is lower than a minister's salary, the difference she received was to top up her MP's salary to the level of a minister, she said.

She added, this is a normal practice in Parliament
"If today they say it is wrong then it is wrong from 1992" she said and challenged any MP who claims not to have received any payment while a minister to deny her claims.

"If they tell you any minister has just a parliamentary salary it's a lie", the feisty MP pulled no punches.

She said the monies to the Minister-MPs are paid either monthly or after their tenure as a minister is over.

"Everybody got it. if you don't receive it in pieces you get it in bulk" she said and expressed surprise that she had been implicated by the CID for stealing.

"Nobody has told us we owe them"