Replace ex-gratia with a pension scheme – Lawmaker appeals

Member of Parliament for Akasti North, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe has appealed to the government to scrap the ex-gratia arrangement for Members of Parliament and replace it with a pensions scheme.

He said in most advanced countries with best practices, a pensions scheme has been instituted for the lawmakers rather than what pertains to Ghana which is the ex-gratia.

Nortsu-Kotoe was speaking on the footsteps segment on Adekye Pa on Adehyeman and Adinkra tv.

I had the opportunity to be sent to France by the former speaker of parliament to study their system and I came back to report but not long then we [NDC] lost the elections.

“I discussed with the current Majority leader that there should be a pensions scheme for MPs. So, as soon as you enter the House you start contributing to the scheme.

“So I will urge that there is a pension’s scheme rather than the ex-gratia that people are shouting about.”

In a related development, a senior Political Science lecturer at the University of Ghana has recently described the calls by some MPs for their ex gratia as “self-seeking, repulsive, and self-aggrandising”.

Professor Ransford Gymapo said, “The call is annoying, repulsive, self-seeking, self-perpetuating and self-aggrandising.”

He told Winston Amoah on the Super Morning Show Thursday that, such a call “can only be made by politicians who, with great respect, have no conscience in the wake of the economic challenges that we are going through now as a nation.”

MPs have called for the payment of an estimated ¢29 million in ex gratia arrears dating back to 2005 which has since sparked public outrage.

The call is led by Majority Leader in Parliament and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu.

Adding his voice to those who have called out the legislators, Prof Gyampo said, “the State does not owe them anything”.

“I am angered by the discussion that has gone on and I think that as a people, as a country and ordinary citizens we are not angry enough so that creates the opportunity for some of these utterances and some of these demands to go on.”

He added, “I was expecting the MP to talk about the fact that every four years they receive ex-gratia and that people have been there for so many years.”

“It doesn’t happen anywhere and they have already drained staff resources and I don’t think that the state owes them anything again,” he said.