According to the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, does not authorize wages and perks for the Executive and, by implication, the First Lady and wife of the Vice-President.
As a result, he has dismissed reports that President Akufo-Addo had granted his permission for Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Mrs Samira Bawumia to earn the same salary as Cabinet ministers.
While verifying that the allowances for the President and Vice-wives President’s had been increased, Mr Oppong Nkrumah stressed that the increase had been approved by the Seventh Parliament.
“The President does not approve salaries and benefits for the Executive. Under Article 71, the First Lady and Second Lady are not office-holders, so no one can determine their benefits under that article.
“However, a committee merely suggested that a formal arrangement for the spouses be established, and Parliament approved it,” he said.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah stated that under an arrangement put in place by former President John Agyekum Kufuor when he took office in 2000, wives of presidents and vice presidents have received allowances since then, despite the fact that there was no official paperwork to back it up.
The allowances granted to the two executive women were deemed part of the President and Vice President’s privileges.
“President Kufuor, in his wisdom, established this as a result of the terrible circumstances that several previous Heads of State’s wives were in at the time. During their terms, Presidents Mills and Mahama further raised the rates of these benefits.”
“The fact is that all current and previous Heads of State’s surviving wives have always earned wages. Since President Kufuor’s tenure, Lordina Mahama, Naadu Mills, Matilda Amissah-Arthur, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, Faustina Acheampong, and Fulera Liman have all received salaries.”
“What has happened now is that the arrangement has been made formal, but that was done legally based on the recommendation by the Emoluments Committee,” the Information Minister emphasised.
Recommendation, approval
Mr Oppong Nkrumah further said that the Emoluments Committee, which was established in 2019 and is headed by Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu, recommended that the allowances provided to the President and Vice President’s wives be officially included in the assessment of executive entitlements.
“That recommendation was then forwarded to the Seventh Parliament, which then gave the approval, and it is now to be implemented. It is, therefore, not true as it is being circulated that the President has approved of emoluments to the First Lady and Second Lady,” he stressed.
The Emolument Committee
President Akufo-Addo established the five-member committee in June 2019 to provide recommendations to him and Parliament on the salary and allowances given to article 71 officeholders, as well as the facilities and privileges accessible to them.
Prof. Ntiamoa-Baidu presided over a meeting that included former Majority Leader and former Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Abraham Ossei Aidooh, the Chief Executive of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, Dr Edward Kwapong, the current Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency, Dr Eric Oduro Osae, and Mrs Stella Segb, a former Managing Director of Donewell Life Insurance Co. Ltd.
They were given the task of making recommendations on emoluments and other privileges for Article 71 officeholders, as defined by the Constitution, as well as looking into any other pertinent issue that the Committee thought was important to its job.
Prof. Miranda Greenstreet, Mrs. Mary Chinery-Hesse, Mr. Ishmael Yamson, Prof. Marian Ewurama Addy, and Prof. Francisca Edu-Buandoh have all led similar committees in the past.
President Akufo-Addo then asked the Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee to bring their work to the table and incorporate the work and suggestions of earlier committees in their deliberations in order to create consistency.
