Former General Secretary of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Atik Mohammed, has suggested that public service workers deserve to receive ex-gratia.
According to Atik Mohammed, the ex-gratia is supposed to be a retirement package or support system for these public service workers.
Highlighting on the Members of Parliament especially, the former PNC General Secretary explained that most Parliamentarians who retire or end their terms in Parliament do not find employment due to the toxic politics in the country, as such, must be paid ex-gratia.
Atik Mohammed explained that because they are characterized by their political allegiances, many organizations wouldn’t like to associate with them.
“When you end your service, no organization wants to employ you because when it employs you, that characterization placed on you that you are party A or B member follows you daily. So, if someone employs you, because of the toxic politics in the country, they begin to target the organization that has given you the job; therefore nobody would like to employ you.”
Atik Mohammed
The former PNC General Secretary averred that the thinking that government should help those who rightly serve their country isn’t a bad thing but his issues is sometimes with the structure and the nature of some of these arrangements.”
However, Atik Mohammed stated that ex-gratia should be a one-off payment. He said: “If you are a Member of Parliament, we should have a one-off ex-gratia for Members of Parliament. If you win and you come back to Parliament, you should not be entitled to any ex-gratia because you are still serving and haven’t ended your service yet.”
Council of State work doesn’t merit ex-gratia
Meanwhile, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, Togbe Afede, has indicated that the work of the council of state does not merit ex-gratia.
“Let me subject this to a bit of analysis, that will respect also the situation in our country and the plight of the average Ghanaian. Some people must not be made to look like a different class of people, but coming to my particular case, the council of state work is part-time work.”
Togbe Afede
The traditional ruler believes that serving on the council of state is a privilege and not an avenue to demand compensation. According to him, the council of state work must not take an individual away from what he or she has already been doing.
“Therefore, it is not a case that you need to be compensated at the end of it all as if you are being thrown out of your job. So, I do not think that the work that I did merited it. But let me assure you that I was one of the most active participants in the council of state, and I was chairman of the economic and special development committee which never met without me.
“Nonetheless I can’t deny the fact that it was part-time work and it was not a full-time work and I did it for four years, that I deserve a colossal of GHS365,000.”
Togbe Afede
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