The First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, has rejected the offer to be paid a monthly salary according to the recommendation of Prof Yaa Ntiamoa-Badu’s Committee as approved by Parliament.
Mrs Akufo-Addo has also decided to refund all monies paid to her as allowances since the President assumed office in January 2017, which amounts to GHc899, 097. 84.
The Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Badu’s Committee, established according to Article 71 of the 1992 Constitution, seeks to regularise the payment of allowance to spouses of the current President and his Vice, former Heads of State, Presidents and Vice Presidents respectively, as part of privileges due to the President and the Vice President under Article 71 of the Constitution.
But in a press statement issued from the First Lady’s office, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo said she has “taken note of the ongoing conversation in the nation following on from these recommendations and their bi-partisan approval by Parliament as mandated by the Constitution.”
According to the press release, such payment of allowances had existed and was made to previous First Ladies in the 4th Republic before she became the First lady.
The statement said Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo did not request to be paid any allowance. “She only received that which existed and attached to her status, albeit informally.”
That notwithstanding, the public discourse on the matter had been tainted with extreme negative opinions and cynicism in some cases, “which she finds distasteful seeking to portray her as a venal, self-serving and self-centred woman who does not care about the plight of the ordinary Ghanaian.”
“In view of this, the First Lady, in consultation with the President of the Republic, has decided to refund monies paid to her as allowance” since her husband assumed office as President in January 2017.
According to the statement, the First Lady “does not want these matters to serve as a distraction from the good work the President is doing to develop our nation.”
The statement said the First Lady would continue to support the President, as she has always done, in executing the mandate entrusted to him by the good people of Ghana.
Rex Mainoo Yeboah, ISD