Acticle 71 Brouhaha: Experts demand national dialogue; Kick against recommendations for presidential spouses

Five governance experts and two gender activists have called for a national dialogue on the emoluments of Article 71 office holders as well as ex gratia paid to parliamentarians.

The experts and activists also kicked against the payment of salaries to First Ladies and the wives of Vice-Presidents.

They argued that the provision was contentious as it brought about disparities in salaries of the entire public sector workers, adding that the current state of the economy, especially with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, did not warrant that expenditure.

For a start, the experts and activists called for a review of the total emolument structure of the public service.

The governance experts and gender advocates spoke to Graphic Online on Tuesday (July 13, 2021) in separate interviews on the emoluments of Article 71 office holders and their extension to the First and the wives of Vice-Presidents after the Prof. Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee’s recommendation and subsequent approval by Parliament last year.

Interviewees

The governance experts are Professor Joseph Atsu Ayee of the Department of Political Science of the University of Ghana, a Senior Lecturer of the Department of History and Political Studies; Dr Kwasi Amakye-Boateng, a former Governance Advisor to the United Nations, Prof. Baffour Agyeman-Duah; and the Director for Advocacy and Policy Engagement at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr Kojo P. Asante.

The gender activists are a lawyer and women's rights activist, Dr Dorcas Coker-Appiah, and an academician and author, Professor Takyiwaa Manuh.

Refunds

Last Monday, Mrs Rebeca Naa Okaikor Akufo-Addo said in consultation with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, she had decided not to accept any monies that had been allocated to be paid to her pursuant to the recommendations of the Emoluments Committee.

She said she would refund all monies paid to her as allowances from the date of the President's assumption of office, that is from January 2017 to date, amounting to GH¢899,097.84.

The wife of the Vice-President, Mrs Samira Bawumia, in a similar fashion has also rejected and indicated she would refund the salaries.

In a statement issued by her office, Mrs Akufo-Addo said she was “doing this as a purely personal decision, without prejudice to the rights of others, and not to undermine the propriety of the process undertaken by Parliament”.

“The First Lady does not want these matters to serve as a distraction from the good work that the President, who is currently touring the Savannah and Upper West regions, is doing to develop our dear nation,” a statement said.

Article 71 office holders

Per the Constitution, Article 71 office holders include the President, the Vice-President, the Speaker of Parliament, the Chief Justice and Justices of the Supreme Court.

The rest are Members of Parliament (MPs), ministers of state, including deputy ministers, political appointees and public servants with salaries charged to the Consolidated Fund but who enjoy special constitutional privileges.

Personalities including the President, Vice-President, the Speaker of Parliament, the Chief Justice, Supreme Court Judges, Appeal Court Judges, High Court Judges, Chair of the Electoral Commission and the two deputies, are also part of such office holders.

Others such as parliamentarians are paid ex gratia every four years when their tenure of office expires.

Article 71(1) and (2) of the 1992 Constitution stipulates that the determination of the salaries and allowances of the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary paid from the Consolidated Fund would be determined by the President, on the recommendations of a committee of not more than five persons appointed by him and acting upon the advice of the Council of State.

In determining the salaries of the President, his ministers and political appointees, as well as the members of the Council of State, the constitution states that Parliament will determine that based on the advice of the same committee.

Background

The payment of allowances to spouses of Presidents and Vice-Presidents was introduced by the first government of the 4th Republic, under the late former President Rawlings.

The allowances have been handled administratively by the Office of the President.

The Presidential Emoluments Committee chaired by Prof. Ntiamoa-Baidu recommended that, henceforth, the wives of Presidents and Vice-Presidents should be paid monthly salaries at the level paid to cabinet ministers, as part of the privileges recommended for Presidents and Vice-Presidents.

The 7th Parliament, which was dissolved on January 6, 2021, approved the recommendation by the Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee to convert the allowances to monthly salaries.

Salary arrears dated back to January 2017 have since been paid to the wives of President Akufo-Addo and Vice-President Bawumia, in accordance with the committee’s recommendation which has been approved by Parliament.

Conversation

Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah and Prof. Takyiwaa Manuh

Commenting on the ensuing controversy, Prof. Ayee said the national conversation should be done through a holistic and comprehensive approach to look at the single spine salary structure that did not take care of public office holders because of Article 71.

He noted that the Prof. Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee could not be blamed regarding payment of allowances to the First and Second Ladies because it only made recommendations which were approved by Parliament.

“So the Executive was just implementing what was approved by Parliament in the report,” he said.

He cited former President John Mahama at a Trades Union Congress (TUC) Quadrennial Conference in Takoradi, calling on the TUC to help the government address the issue of Article 71, meaning governments and presidents had realised that Article 71 was problematic but because the executive, legislature, judiciaries, among others were benefiting from it, whenever they came to power they did not touch it.

“As a country, we need to have a national conversation on Article 71 which is an entrenched provision and it must be led by the executive. Maybe, civil society groups can also take it up because it is contentious issue, it has got distortions; salary distortions and disparities that some people every four years they take ex gratia, some retire on their salaries while others have worked for 40 years and do not retire on their salaries,” Prof. Ayee said.

He said one of the reasons given for the enhanced emoluments of Article 71 office holders was to insulate them against corruption. However, he thinks that intention had not worked because of the perception of some people in the three arms of government being cited for alleged corruption.

“So the argument that if people retire on their salaries or their ex gratia awards they are not going to be corrupt has not worked. So my own view is that we should have a national dialogue on Article 71 and then say which kind of people would retire on their salaries and then which type of people would be paid ex gratia awards, among other things, he added.

Merits

For his part, Dr Amakye-Boateng said although Article 108 made room for the expansion of Article 71 office holders, it must be done consciously on its own merits, adding that the current arrangement was done by a committee set to decide how much money should go to who?

“They (First and Second Ladies) are not beneficiaries of Article 71 office holders, so that is a procedural challenge and ... expanding the holders of Article 71 becomes another issue,” he said The political science lecturer added that “marriage is a social institution and Article 71 holders are in offices of political institutions so we cannot easily, working through the work of any committee transform a social institution into a political institutions.

“Political institutions are established by the constitution not by any person so you can’t, through the action of the President, transform a social institution into a political institution,” he stated.

Dr Amakye-Boateng said an amendment would have to be done if the First and Second Ladies were to be part of Article 71 holders.

Rejection, refund worse

Dr Amakye-Boateng said the rejection of the money by the First and Second Ladies had come very late and would not achieve the intended purposes since it was a moral issue.

Moreover, he said, rejecting it on the basis of public outcry was worse since they had taken it only to refund it late after public reaction.

“If you are not taking it because the owners of the money are not satisfied with the arrangement then it is problematic.You wanted everybody to keep quiet so that you take the money, no,” he said.

Dr Amakye-Boateng said with COVID-19 still prevailing this was the time to cut down on public expenditure since there was a lot of work to be done such as the construction of hospitals and roads.

Specifically on ex gratia, he stressed the need for the country to have a discussion on it for a decision to be taken since it was not proper for parliamentarians to take lump sums every four years.

“Generally, we have to recognise that there are elders in society and that they should be taken care of in a way that deserves the inputs they have made and the fact that society acknowledges them as elders and it should be commensurate with the financial strength of the state,” Dr Amakye-Boateng said.

Criticisms

For his part, Prof. Agyemang-Duah stated that criticising the First and the Second Ladies for the salaries apportioned to them under the recommendations of the committee was unfair.

He stated that the two never had a hand in the decision of the committee nor asked for it, hence bastardising them was unfair.

Prof. Agyemang-Duah, who is a Co-Founder of CDD-Ghana, said providing allowances was preferable for them, since the ladies did a lot.

He said the contribution of the First Ladies over the years had been remarkable and that though they were pursuing their selected interest, they had contributed immensely to national development.

He mentioned Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings in women empowerment and Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo in the area of health infrastructure.

He noted that apart from those contributions, they were expected to be very presentable at state functions, state visits by Heads of State, among others; therefore supporting them was very appropriate and good.

Prof. Agyemang-Duah cited the United States of America where the First Ladies, though not given allowances, were provided with a full office and staff, including a Chief of Staff.

The lecturer and political analyst expressed worry that anytime issues cropped up Ghanaians rushed in taking decisions without reflecting because those ladies used their social capital and raised funds to bring development to the people.

Review

Dr Kojo Asante, Director, Advocacy and Policy Engagement, Centre for Democratic Development and Prof Atsu Ayee, Research Fellow, Institute for Democratic Governance 

Dr Asante also called for a review of the total emolument structure of the public service.

The current structure, he opined, allowed for discretions in determining benefits for public officers which “undermines public accountability.”

In his view, although Article 71 of the 1992 Constitution was problematic, there were “too many distortions and perversions” in the emolument structure for the public service as a whole.

“I think the whole emolument process has to be reviewed. It is not just Article 71. It is the entire public service. There are just too many distortions and perversions of what is appropriate compensation for certain offices.”

Dr Asante further stated that with such inequalities in the public service, it created very perverse incentives, so everybody was clamouring to get to a certain position because they might even in some cases have to retire on those benefits.

“When this happens it means you are going to undermine public accountability,” he observed.

Dr Asante, however, called for a legislation to spell out the compensation packages and privileges of First and Second Ladies, “so we do not come back to this conversation again,” he said.

Opposition

Both Dr Coker-Appiah and Prof. Manuh opposed the issue of paying salaries to the First and Second Ladies.

They concurred that the two were not public officials and, therefore, could not draw salaries from the public purse.

At best, what could be done for them was to ensure that they were comfortable to attend public programmes by giving them fuelled cars, security and some stipends for their wardrobes.

Dr Coker-Appiah, who is also the Executive Director of the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre, also known as the "Gender Centre", said First Ladies should not be paid as their positions were not of an elected office.

However, she said, their attendance to public programmes should be catered for by the state and nothing more.

Dr Coker-Appiah, however, supported the refunds of the payments by the First and Second Ladies, saying the payments “should not have been done in the first pace.”

Recommendations

Prof. Manuh, for her part, questioned where the Prof. Ntiamoa-Baidu-led committee got the legal basis to recommend salaries for the wives of the President and Vice-President.

She said Ghana was not a rich country and, therefore, the public purse should not be stretched that far, saying that “we have to be careful how we expand the public purse”.

Prof. Manuh, an Emerita Professor of the University of Ghana, who until her retirement in May 2017 served as the Director of the Social Development Policy Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, said the two were right to set up foundations to pursue their interests but to be paid by the government through formal or informal arrangements was not the right thing to be done.

Scrap Article 71

In a separate interview, a social analyst, Sheikh Armiyawo Shaibu, called for the entire provision of Article 71 of the Constitution to be scrapped, describing it as “an unfair arrangement.”

“I think Article 71 should be scrapped because it is an unfair arrangement. We should make an arrangement that is less harmful and less discriminatory. We appreciate that these are people who are doing a good work but let’s review it and give it a certain balance,” he said.

Sheikh Shaibu also blamed Parliament for “approving something that is unconstitutional.”

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