Moves to review ex-gratia exercise in futility

Page 16, July 23, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE Minority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has described the government’s efforts at reviewing the emoluments payable to beneficiaries of Article 71 of the Constitution, as determined by the Chinnery Hesse Committee as an “exercise in futility”.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic about the rejection of the Chinnery Hesse Committee recommendations as the basis for the determination of those emoluments, the Minority Leader stated that President Mills “cannot arrogate to himself the functions of the former President and the former Parliament”.
He, therefore, described the action of the President in setting up the Ishmael Yamson Committee as unconstitutional and questioned how an administrative committee could overturn a decision of Parliament.
He maintained that it was not the business of the current government to determine the emoluments of former President J.A. Kufuor and Members of Parliament (MPs) of the Fourth Parliament of the Fourth Republic, and described any such action as a “de facto” action.
“Any attempt to do that will be a breach of the Constitution”, he said, and indicated that the Minority would study the report of the Ishmael Yamson Committee, which President J. E. A. Mills set up to review the Chinnery Hesse Committee’s report to know their next line of action.
Asked whether the Minority would go to court to seek justice, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said that he was yet to get a copy of the report of the Ishmael Yamson Committee, adding that “we shall cross the bridge when we get to the river”.
As to why the Chinnery Hesse Committee’s report was adopted under a certificate of urgency during the last sitting of the previous Parliament, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said it was not a misplacement for Parliament to do so and cited a number of papers and loans that had gone through such a process.
He said nobody could dispute the fact that the recommendations of the Chinnery Hesse’s Committee were adopted by the previous Parliament, explaining that MPs in the previous Parliament had a collective responsibility to accept the decision they took .
On the way forward, the Minority Leader stated that “the bottom-line is the ability to pay” and called for engagement between Parliament and the Presidency rather than the latter taking actions which were unconstitutional.
“The action of the government is most unfortunate and should not be entertained”, he maintained.
The Daily Graphic reported on the front page of its Tuesday, July 21, 2009 edition that the Ishmael Yamson committee had declared that the Chinnery Hesse Committee report could not be the basis for determining those emoluments.
The report stated that there were two different reports, one of which was submitted in June 2008, while the other was submitted in December, 2008.
The paper stated that the Ishmael Yamson Committee report said it could not establish which of the two reports was purportedly approved by ex-President Kufuor and the Parliament at the time.