Former president John Dramani Mahama has responded to a claim by his friend in government, calling on him to reject monthly ex-gratia if he is really true with recent promises to scrap ex-gratia when elected president.
Nana Akomea, a former lawmaker and current Managing Director of Intercity STC; said challenged Mahama on live radio last week to stop drawing monthly ex-gratia.
But Mahama via a social media post lamented what he said was 'politics' in the views that Akomea was advancing. Referring to Akomea as 'my friend,' the former president went on to describe his former colleague in parliament as a fine mind.
The National Democratic Congress' 2024 flagbearer clarified that as a former president he receives a monthly pension and not ex-gratia as Akomea had claimed.
"My friend Nana Akomea. Really sad what politics can do to a fine mind! I don't take ex-gratia. I receive a monthly pension," Mahama's May 26, 2023 post read.
What did Akomea say?
Speaking recently on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo morning show, Akomea submitted: “Let me give him one challenge, just one challenge, Togbe Afede said that for him he doesn’t believe in ex-gratia as a Council of State member, so what did he do?
"The ex-gratia that they gave him, he returned them to the government…after returning the money to the government, President Mahama praised him for doing that, saying he is a man of principle…so it means that Togbe Afede has principles by returning the ex-gratia.
"President Mahama, today if you claim you don’t believe in the ex-gratia, the ones that you have taken, we know that you have spent it already, so, we can’t say that go and bring it…
"but the challenge I am giving to him is that the ones that he will be taking from this month May, he shouldn’t take it, he should stop taking the ex-gratia, the same way Togbe Afede stopped and returned his own, he should follow the same principle,” he said.
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