The Majority Leader and Member of Parliament for Suame Constituency, Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, has said the concerns of Ex-gratia which is paid to government appointees after their service cannot be scraped unless it goes through a constitutional review.
His comments were in reaction to the pronouncement by the former President, John Dramani Mahama, who, during his acceptance speech after the primaries of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), said he will scrap off Ex-gratia when he comes into office come 2025.
In an interview, the majority leader stated that gratuity which is due to every government appointee is entrenched in the constitution hence it cannot just be scrapped.
“I think that what the former president is saying should be one of the things that we should have a national conversation on. I have personally had some discussions with him on that. Indeed in 2020, during the electioneering campaign time, he raised it. This is not the first time he is talking about that. He raised it in 2020, that when he was elected, he was going to go away with it. I told him, that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Because the gratuity is part of the chapter on the executive and the who chapter on the executive in the constitution is entrenched. So, you can’t wake up one day to say, I have cancelled it,” he said.
According to him, the change can be possible if it’s part of a holistic constitutional review.
“So, I told him that unless it is part of a holistic review of the constitution I will subscribe to it but you going out on a political platform to say that you are going to cancel it, how are you going to cancel it, he asked.