Besides MPs, who else benefited from ex gratia?
It is common these days to observe that whenever two or three people are gathered, they are likely to be discussing the challenges regarding the inadequate supply of electricity, water gas or low wages.
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In addition, there have been reports of the mismanagement of funds by various state institutions and labour agitation by key professionals such as teachers, doctors, lecturers and government hospital pharmacists.
While the government engages in negotiations with the various labour groups with the appeal that they accept to be paid their arrears in instalments, the nation woke up last week to be greeted by the news that the 230 MPs who served in the fifth Parliament in the Fourth Republic had been paid a total of GH¢47 million as ex gratia.
Since the news broke, some Ghanaians, including workers, have expressed outrage about the payment even though it has been explained that the payment forms part of the conditions of service of Article 71 public office holders.
The Constitution provides that the salaries, allowances, facilities and privileges available to Article 71 officers shall be determined by the President, on the recommendations of a committee of not more than five persons appointed by the President, acting in accordance with the advice of the Council of State.
It also provides that the salaries and allowances payable, and the facilities available to the President, the Vice-President, the chairman and the other members of the Council of State, ministers of state and deputy ministers, being expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund, shall be determined by Parliament, on the recommendations of the committee appointed by the President.
Article 71(3) explains: “For the purposes of this article, and except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, “salaries’’ include allowances, facilities and privileges and retiring benefits or awards.”
We are compelled to ask whether other Article 71 public office holders have also benefitted from this ‘golden’ handshake of ex gratia.
There are other public office holders, such as ministers of state, chief directors, chief executives and other top public servants, who enjoy all kinds of fringe benefits, such as free accommodation and free means of transport that will blow the minds of ordinary Ghanaians.
To ensure transparency in the use of the Consolidated Fund, the Daily Graphic thinks that a full disclosure of the beneficiaries of ex gratia this year will help the cause of democratic governance in the country.
At present, the debate over the quantum of ex gratia paid to MPs is quite selective and feeds into the perception that there is an attempt by a section of the public to always incite the people against their MPs.
The MPs have argued that if that were not the case, why was it that anytime they had been given loans to buy cars or rent accommodation, the public had descended heavily on them by calling them all kinds of names.
The payment of ex gratia to the MPs has naturally attracted the ire of ordinary people who cannot afford even a square meal a day, let alone talk about other necessities of life.
Legally, the MPs have not breached any regulations or laws by receiving what was due them. All the same, the posture of MPs has caused considerable anguish among the electorate, who think their elected representatives do not want to share the present burden of the nation with the people who voted for them.
Unfortunately, the payment has confirmed the notion that politics has become a money business and that it is no longer service to the people. It is obvious that people go into politics to serve themselves.
The Daily Graphic thinks the timing of the payment of ex gratia to MPs was wrong and that whoever took that decision has done the nation a great disservice.
How do you pay such huge amounts to our lawmakers who hold the purse strings of the government and then turn round to ask our teachers and doctors to hold on with their grievances?
For instance, while MPs received their huge ex gratia within a two-month period, university teachers have been asked to accept the payment of their outstanding allowances over a six-month period.
Certainly, the teachers will not applaud the government.
We recognise that democracy is a very expensive governance process and we need to manage the process well in order to get all to be part of it.
From the way things are going, it is obvious that some Ghanaians think they are merely “hewers of wood and drawers of water’’ in the democratic process.
Even as we struggle with efforts at restructuring the economy for the good of all, we should also avoid tendencies that give the impression of a society modelled along the lines of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” where the political or ruling class is regarded as being more important than the electorate.
The ruling class should not forget the social contract it always signs with the electorate during elections, just as the one we had in December 2012. Although that contract is unwritten, the people vote along a certain line in the hope that the elected officials will manage the resources of the state for the benefit of all, or at least majority of the people.
As a nation, we have shied away from a debate on salaries and wages that can ensure consensus on the way to reward or compensate labour.
Faced with a similar agitation in the 2000s, then President J.A. Kufuor called for such a stakeholders’ forum to discuss the issue, but it never materialised.
In spite of his famous refrain that “workers pretend to be working, while the government pretends to be paying them”, we have done very little to motivate our workers to deliver what it takes to turn the economy round.
The Daily Graphic thinks that instead of inciting public disaffection against the MPs, we should use the opportunity to demand reforms in all salaries and incentives that are a charge on the Consolidated Fund.
Such reforms should aim at equity and also take into account the purse of the state to avoid a situation where some categories of public officials receive emoluments as if they are super- human beings.
Let the political class understand the mood of the nation, so that they can accept the realisation that we are not in normal times. And it is about time our leaders also bore the pain of nation-building.
We suggest the government takes the lead by cutting down the benefits of its appointed officials to set the tone for sacrifices by all.