Salary for Rebecca & Samira: NDC, ASEPA seek interpretation of Article 71 at SC Friday

ASEPA says it will file a motion in court to challenge the legality of the approval of salaries and allowances for the spouses of the President Akufo-Addo and his Vice Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

Parliament has approved recommendations to pay First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Samira Bawumia equal at salaries of a cabinet minister. This has received a backlash from ASEPA which says it will hurriedly go to the court to mount a legal challenge against the decision amid seeking of perpetual injunction to stop it.

With the approval by parliament, they will be receiving a near-twenty-one thousand Cedis monthly salaries from 2017.

Speaking in an interview monitored by African Editors, Executive Director of Asepa Mensah Thompson said “Our lawyers are working on the writ and by Friday, we’ll file at the court to challenge the decision by parliament”.

Meanwhile, the Youth Wing of the opposition NDC youth says they will file a write at the Supreme Court to seek interpretation on the matter whilst embarking ‘no salary for presidential wives uprising’ in the country. According to national youth organiser of the party, they will invoke the jurisdiction of the apex court on the matter because the Ntiamoah Committee erred.

In a sharp rebuttal, Executive Director of CDD-Ghana Prof. H Kwesi Prempeh says executive and parliament cannot smuggle payments of salaries and allowances- emoluments for presidential wives/spouses in the name of Article 71 of the 1992 Constitution.

For his part, Private Legal Practitioner Edudzi Tameklo has urged President Akufo-Addo and his vice to amend the constitution to include the two wives as article 71 office holders if they want their wives to be paid.

A section of the public are calling for scrapping of the office of the First and Second ladies.

Source: africaneditors.com