Four civil society groups have raised serious concerns over the huge expenditure on the accommodation of the Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ms Lauretta Lamptey.
They described the expenditure as constituting an injustice, wasteful and an open loot of state resources.
The four groups are IMANI Ghana, the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) and the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII).
It’s an injustice
The Executive Director of IMANI Ghana, Mr Franklin Cudjoe, described the $203,500, the equivalent of GH¢610,500, spent on Ms Lamptey’s accommodation at the African Union Village and later at a hotel as a “grievous human right abuse on Ghanaians”.
He said the amount spent on her accommodation at the expense of the critical needs of CHRAJ was untenable and “an injustice on all of us”.
Mr Cudjoe said from all indications, Ms Lamptey was not working and that such an amount remained largely unjustifiable.
Wasteful expenditure
The Campaigns Co-ordinator of ISODEC, Dr Steve Manteaw, said the expenditure by the CHRAJ boss was a wasteful one that fed into public perception that the government was wasteful, saying it was not good for both CHRAJ and the government.
He said in spite of the constitutional guarantee of the independence of CHRAJ, there ought to be some prudence in the utilisation of public resources.
He called for a law to ensure value for every justification of expenses made by bodies that drew on the public purse, pointing out that failure to provide such justification should lead to a refund of the used resources.
Unjustifiably high
A Research Fellow and Legal Policy Analyst at the CDD, Mr Victor Brobbey, described the expenditure as “unjustifiable, given the financial position of CHRAJ”.
He said CHRAJ was one of the most under-resourced bodies in the country and the choice of accommodation by the chief executive of such an institution should reflect the financial status of the institution.
He also called for a second look at how people were appointed and the calibre of people who were appointed to such offices, saying Ms Lamptey had shown “extremely poor judgement”.
On the way forward, he called for a legal regime that would ensure that persons appointed to head CHRAJ would require parliamentary approval to ensure that due diligence was done.
Pervasive loot in public sector
The Executive Director of the GII, Mr Vitus Azeem, said the CHRAJ Commissioner’s case could be a single example of a pervasive loot of state resources within the public accommodation sector which required focused attention.
According to him, effective systems should be put in place to oversee and determine government residences that required renovation and the form it must take.
Ceiling on expenditure
Beyond that, he said, there must be a ceiling on how much could be expended when an appointee had to live in rented premises for a period of time and also how much could be spent on renovations.
It was wrong, he said, for appointees to determine the nature of the renovations they desired.
Rather, Mr Azeem said, an independent office should handle that mandate, pointing out that that fell within the powers of the Administrator-General whom, he observed, was limited in resources and, therefore, could not discharge that mandate effectively.
Background
The Daily Graphic last Tuesday carried a front page story which said Ms Lamptey had, since August this year, moved into a hotel after the tenancy of her US$5,500 monthly rented apartment at the African Union Village had expired.
The daily rate for the hotel is $456.25, being paid in cedis.
Investigations conducted by the Daily Graphic, following concerns raised by some workers of CHRAJ, indicated that Ms Lamptey was awaiting the completion of her official residence, which was still under renovation, three years after assuming the position.
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