The General Secretary of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Janet Asana Nabla has called for the cancellation of ex-gratia that the country pays to Members of Parliament every four years.
She said monies paid to MPs as ex-gratia is one of the contributory factors to the economic challenges the country is faced with, hence it should be re-examined or completely scrapped.
According to the PNC General Secretary, over-expenditure coupled with the payment of ex-gratia to Members of Parliament every four years after serving as MP puts pressure on the country’s economy. These have cumulatively, led the government to for IMF for a balance of payment deficit.
Madam Nabla argued that if the government does not see the need to cancel the payment of ex-gratia, it should only be paid to Members of Parliament who would not return to Parliament after four years and not on a four-year basis payment.
“Every four years, they pay ex-gratia to all the parliamentarians. We are not saying if the person is done with politics and he or she is going home, the country should not give him or her anything. That is not what we are saying.”
What we are saying is that the yearly payment of ex-gratia to MPs that are still in P could drive the country into poverty. “Those huge monies they take as ex-gratia is one of the reasons why we have gone to IMF, it has driven this country into poverty,” she said
Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin recently justified the payment of ex-gratia to Members of Parliament. He indicated that the money is very important for the sustenance of the MPs after serving the country. The Speaker explained that the money spent by Members of Parliament to campaign for their elections is three times more than the ex-gratia they receive.
But the PNC general secretary Madam Nabla noted that to become a member of Parliament or a politician as a whole is not mandatory but voluntary therefore the issue that MPs are spending much money “is neither here nor there because they own out voluntarily to serve their constituents and they have to do that with their salaries no with additional huge monies every four fours called ex-gratia.”
Madam Nabla, therefore, called on Ghanaians to take the issues of how the government pays ex-gratia in the country serious and join hands to fight against it.
Source:A1Radioonline.Com|10.1MHZ|David Azure| Bolgatanga|Ghana
