CHRAJ boss’ $4,500 rent allowance no big deal – Twum-Boafo

The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB), Kwadwo Twum-Boafo has jumped to the defense of the CHRAJ boss, Vivian Lauretta Lamptey in the recent controversy regarding her accommodation.

According to the head of the Free Zones Board, the $4,500 rent allowance she is alleged to have paid for a house at the AU village is not “strange”.

“Paying $4,500 a month at AU Village, is it strange? People are renting apartments at Cantonments and paying 5000, is it strange?" Twum-Boafo fumed on Radio Gold on Saturday.

Lamptey is embroiled in a controversy over her official residence. She is reported to have, within 37 months – from July 2011 when she was appointed to July 2014 when her rent at the AU Village expired – spent US$203,500 on rent and utilities, at the expense of the State.

She is currently lodging at a hotel and paying the Cedi equivalent of $456.25 per day, in the interim, as her official residence, which was inhabited by her predecessor, Emile Short, undergoes renovation at a cost of Ghc182, 000.

There are calls for her to resign from office over the development .

But Twum-Boafo believes the matter is being blown out of proportion.

“When we are doing some of these things, let us be very careful. Today the shoe is on one person, tomorrow it’s on the other. Let us not moralise and demonise people,” he stated.