Parliament Never Approved Ntiamoah-Baidu Recommendations For Fat Salaries To First Lady …Ablakwa

Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said that the controversial report by the Ntiamoah-Baidu Emoluments Committee was never approved by Parliament.

In an interview on Accra-based Okay FM, Hon. Ablakwa swears by the Heavens that the report did not even come before Parliament let alone undergo debate and approval.

“The Heavens can bear me witness I was a member of the seventh parliament and I did not see any committee’s report so I don’t even know where this claim of parliamentary approval is coming from because our standing orders are clear. Before the House approves something, members of parliament must have a copy and I can tell you authoritatively that no member of the house has a copy of the committee’s report,” Hon. Ablakwa said.

And he challenged anybody with the alternative facts to come out and dispute his revelation.

“I challenge anybody who claims otherwise to come out to dispute what I’m saying. Parliament is a house of records and that is why we should not be joking with certain things.”

The revelation gives credence to speculations that the Akufo-Addo administration may have illegally started implementing the controversial report which recommended fat salaries to the President and other Article 71 office holders and also recommended that First and Second Ladies are placed on the same salary as Cabinet Ministers.

Implementation of the recommendations by the Committee set up by the President in 2019 has provoked uproar among Ghanaians because of the general fat salaries that were recommended for Article 71 officeholders at a time that the government has asked citizens to tighten their belts.

However, the recommendation for the First and Second Ladies to be placed on salaries has been especially provoking because the First and Second Ladies are not captured by the Constitution as Article 71 officeholders.

At least two suits have been filed at the Supreme Court over the unconstitutionality of those recommendations and their subsequent implementation by the Akufo-Addo government.

Meanwhile, both First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Second Lady Samira Bawumia have returned all the salaries paid them in the course of the implementation of the recommendations.