Justifiable anger
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. —VICTOR HUGO
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The diffused public interest generated by the expenditure on accommodation for the Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, particularly because the renovation of her official residence has taken too long, is justified in many ways. Perhaps, Ms Lauretta Lamptey herself has added to the public anger by her defensive posture.
Compared with the condemnation of Members of Parliament, when they received GH¢50,000 to cover their rent for their tenure of four years, it becomes too glaring that the public has not always been fair to the MPs.
This could sometimes be explained by their conduct of excessive partisanship concerning issues of national interest and the majority subservience to the executive since 1993. Such developments undermine their importance in the democratic process and governance generally.
We should not delude ourselves that until the Daily Graphic reported the matter of the monthly rent of the CHRAJ boss, nobody knew that the taxpayer was overburdened. As one of the independent constitutional bodies, CHRAJ is mandated to report annually to Parliament. More important, the budget of the CHRAJ is discussed by Parliament annually before it is approved.
The budget passes through the Ministry of Finance before it gets to Parliament. Therefore, there are a number of public officials and politicians who have obligation to scrutinise financial demands from CHRAJ before appropriation is done through the Consolidated Fund.
Additionally, whether the rent was paid in advance or in arrears, requests are made to the Controller and Accountant General before funds are released for the payments, and indeed payment will be made only after it has been established that provision has been made for the specific item.
Therefore, whereas it could be said that the public anger against the CHRAJ boss is justifiable, especially when the CHRAJ is to ensure the promotion of human rights and administrative justice, the CHRAJ boss must come with clean hands to give meaning to the saying that charity begins at home.
However, nobody in government should try to play the ostrich. Beyond the fact that there are a large number of public officials whose rent are paid from the Consolidated Fund, who might be paying similar or close to similar rents, it is also no exaggeration to state that most of our public officials, including political office holders, senior civil and public servants, live in state-owned houses whose economic value may be higher than the rent paid for the CHRAJ boss.
The point is that most of our senior state employees live in prime areas which generally should attract premium rent income. What this means is that if these facilities were to be rented for economic value, the state would have derived better income from them than giving them out to public officials.
There are chief executives of state- owned enterprises whose rentals are far higher than that of the CHRAJ boss. We need to have a common policy on the conditions of service of all those who are employed by the state, whether they generate income or otherwise. We need competent and capable persons to work for the state in all facets of our national development.
That is one justification for the proposal which came from the Constitutional Review Commission’s work that all public sector employees from the President of the Republic of Ghana down to the labourer, must be on the single spine salary structure managed by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission.
Since the Auditor General has record of all statutory payments, it would be prudent in the name of transparency, fairness and accountability to publish the rent paid to public officials accommodated in private buildings. Equally, the potential rent income from public buildings must be determined so that we will know exactly how much we are spending on our public officials.
That way, we could have a basis for national policy as to pay them a percentage, currently at 20 per cent on the average.
Accordingly, instead of singling out Ms Lamptey, we should use the bad case of the CHRAJ boss to begin a national debate for reforms on how the state must treat her employees when it comes to accommodation. Whatever her failure, there are structures which support her indiscretion.
We have to take away that freedom to choose and impose an order. We should not make monsters and fraudsters of our senior public officials. My suggestion, therefore, is that we must pay comprehensive salaries. Where it is inevitable to provide accommodation, rent must be paid in accordance with public policy. No one, including the President, must be provided free accommodation.
A freedom of information law will enable us to know others living like Ms Lamptey, so that they could be exposed and shamed to protect the public purse.
