Ex-gratia: Article 71 review calls political gimmick - Lecturer

A Political Science Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Abass Mohammed has described calls for a review of emoluments for Article 71 office holders as a political gimmick.

According to him, political parties have not demonstrated a clear commitment to scrap emoluments paid to Article 71 office holders.

His comment comes after the governing New Patriotic Party(NPP) described as pretentious a promise by former President John Mahama to review the constitution to deal with the emoluments of Article 71 office holders when he’s voted into power.

The NPP argued that the former President had the opportunity to have done the review when he was in power but he conveniently decided to stay away.

Speaking on Starr FM, Abass Mohammed said both the ruling NPP and the largest opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) are simply playing politics with the matter.

“They are all trying to continue with their normal political games because I don’t think any of them has so far demonstrated the clear commitment whether in power or out of power. So it’s the normal political game to score points, that’s how I see it.”

“Whether one is in power or out of power for me it doesn’t matter. When you demonstrate strong commitment people are able to tell that this person this thing has been a bother to him, it has been a concern, he has raised it several times at several fora, or anytime the person gets an opportunity he talks about it.

"Then clearly we’ll know or associate that person with the commitment to do something about it. But to say that when one was in power he had the opportunity to change but because he didn’t do that then he doesn’t have the moral right, I don’t subscribe to that school of thought,” Abass Mohammed added.

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