Ghana's esteemed members of the Ecowas Parliament had to pack wigs and 'Ghana Must Go' (the name Nigerians have given to the checkered nylon bags that traders mostly use to travel), and move out of the $200-a-day five-star Sheraton Hotel on the third day of their two-week sojourn here on official business.
They realized that their travelling allowance could not take them a day longer, and beat it to a dingy single-star hotel, Gida Hotel, at Asokoro, a suburb closer to the Ecowas Secretariat where some of them saved even further by trekking the short distance to the Ecowas Parliament.
They then cooled off in the functioning air-conditioned interiors. Some of them paired up in their rooms to make further savings on the $30.00 a day hotel.
Only Hon. Hawa Yakubu was saved the blushes when a good Samaritan left sufficient funds at the reception to pay for her stay.
When she got the news and found out the quantum of the amount, she called the reception, did a quick mental calculation and decided to check out the next day and collect the considerable difference.
"We have instructions to return the difference to the good Samaritan after you check out or call for a top-up if you stay longer."
She returned to her penthouse suite on the 8th floor that cost some $400 a day.
Hon. Alice Boon, the girlish other lady Ecowas MP, explained with a gesture - she rubbed her left palm with the right - to explain why they had to scram from the Sheraton and doubled up with laughter when she overheard a colleague from Nigeria complain loudly that the Federal Inland Revenue Service was offering him and four other MPs only $250.00 each as per diem when they visit Ghana on official business beginning on Monday.
"Ah, but that is almost twice what our Ministers take when they travel on official business abroad," this reporter retorted to the Ecowas MP who is also a member of the Nigerian House of Representatives from Maiduguiri, Borno State. They are to understudy Ghana's Internal Revenue Service and how efficient they operate.
Yes! Hon. Boon beckoned and motioned that I should keep quiet. Still laughing she recalled that when news got out that a major row had broken over the $20,000 car loan to MPs, they became the butt of jokes and ridicule from their colleagues.
She said that they could only make excuses to their counterparts that it may be a mistake and that when they go back to Ghana, they would be sorting things out.
Curiously, when the issue of members who had paid up their dues came up on the floor of the Assembly earlier in the day, Hon. Osei Bonsu bravely rose to make a correction.
"Mr. Speaker, I want to submit that Ghana has also paid up its dues..." Actually, explained Hon Osei Bonsu, he had had to sit on the neck of the Minister of Finance for a cheque to pay, at least some of their dues.
The Honourables have been scheduled to return on Monday, but have sufficient reason to be cheerful.
They all have their pockets brimming with dollars, being their sitting allowance which is far more than they could ever earn as impoverished MPs from Ghana.
But there may be a cruel twist to the pocket of the two MPs who were tipped off to resign as part of the plot to get Hawa Yakubu, but who then outsmarted them and resigned before being humiliated by the NPP leadership in Parliament, Chronicle can independently confirm that.
A letter from Hon. Ala Adjetey had dispatched a letter to the Speaker here in which he had attached the resignation letters of the two Ministers who are also Members of the Ecowas Parliament - Honourable Rashid Bawa and Hon.Yawa Barimah - dated April 23 and April 26, 2002.
Hawa Yakubu is the only one who was a serving member of the Government and whose name, therefore, stood out like a sore thumb.
Hon. Abraham Kofi Asante had also raised the issue of 'incompatibility' of some MPs on the floor.
(It is a breach of the protocols that serving members of Government should also be Ecowas MP.) Adjetey's letter gave the game away in the final paragraph:
"For the avoidance of doubt, letters of resignation by Hon.Yaw Barimah and Hon. Rashid Bawa who have hitherto attended meetings of the community Parliament INFORMALLY, are hereto attached."
By the time this piece was being filed it could not be established whether Yaw Barimah and Rashid Bawa would be paid for their INFORMAL attendance to date, something in excess of $12,000
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