Stop CID probe into double salary saga – Kwamena Ahwoi to Akufo-Addo

An Executive Member of the Centre for Democratic Transitions, Ghana, Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, has inveighed against investigations into the double salary saga by the Police, calling on the President to stop the CID from continuing the ongoing probe set into the matter.

Prof Kwamena Ahwoi, also a leading member of the opposition NDC believes the issue is purely an employer-employee relationship, hence ought not to be criminalised.

In a letter to the President by the former official said: “Your Excellency, these problems will recur in the future if we do not acknowledge them as systemic and structural failures and rather insist on treating them as criminal matters.”

“Unfortunately, the consequences of those flaws are being treated as criminal matters and have become the subject of current police criminal investigations,” Prof Ahwoi added.

These problems, according to Prof Ahwoi, occurred in the past, even in former President John Agyekum Kufuor's administration and the late President John Evans Atta Mills was compelled to write to the then Speaker of Parliament on the issue.

Prof Ahwoi advised the government to establish a task force with representation from the Office of the President, Parliamentary Service, Ministry of Finance, CAGD, Audit Service and the Presidential Committee on Emoluments 2013-2017 to reconcile the accounts of the affected Article 71 Office Holders on a case by case basis and determine whether there should a refund of the overpayment by the officials.

“Article 71 Office Holders found to have been overpaid or doubly paid should be made to refund the overpayment or double payment staggered over an agreed period of time.”

Some NDC MPs who were Ministers and Deputy Ministers and Article 71 Office Holders in the erstwhile Mahama administration are currently being investigated for taking double salaries while in government.

The Police CID initially invited 25 minority members who also served in the Executive in the erstwhile Mahama regime but later revoked 18 of the invitations citing some mistakes early on.