Mills Still Holding Onto Kufuor's Ex-Gratia

Mr. Frank Agyekum, Spokesperson for former President John Agyekum Kufuor, has disclosed that the ex-president has not been paid his ex-gratia. He has also revealed that none of the members of his staff have been given their gratuity, despite government's assurances to do so.

According to him, "when this matter came up, a commitment was made by government to pay him his salary.but since then we have not really discussed whether he has been paid or not, but what i can confirm to you is that his staff have not been paid anything."

Ex-President Kufuor's spokesperson pointed out that though constitutionally, parliament was solely responsible for deciding the President's benefits; President Mills' administration went ahead to set-up a committee to review the ex-gratia.

He, however, acknowledged that the NDC government offered the ex-president some vehicles but they declined saying Ex-President Kufuor wanted the package in its entirety.

"For clarity...no vehicles officially have been given to the ex-president as at now...we were saying that the package should be given to him in whole and not as a matter of tokenism...to avoid any more hullabaloo, let us do the thing properly.when he's doing anything it should come to parliament first..so that nobody then comes to question the following day how did he come by this or how he came by that office.if anything is going to be given to him, they should do what the constitution says and it should be done through parliament.as at now, no vehicles, no accommodation, no anything," he told Joyfm.

Asked if the ex-president is unhappy with the current state of affairs regarding his ex-gratia, Mr. Agyekum replied in the affirmative, adding that the former President "felt he was being denied what was due him."

".Yes, because... he operates from his house and that is very inconvenient to him, because he has all kinds of people coming to visit him, he needs his privacy... with everybody coming in and out of his residence, you can understand that it is not the best arrangement...he (former President Kufuor) has vehicles which were not given to him by the state...even his security people have to use private vehicles he provided for them," he stated.

Later in an interview on PEACEFM News@6pm, Mr. Agyekum pointed out that to the best of his knowledge, after the Ishmael Yamson Committee, set up by the current administration submitted its recommendations to President Mills, he forwarded it to Parliament, adding that "we're awaiting the decision of Parliament on the issue."