Dr Justice Yankson, Vice President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), claims that successive administrations have showed little interest in examining ex-gratia for Article 71 office holders.
He said that since the report of the Constitution Review Commission was released, none of the two major political parties has taken any efforts to put it into effect, particularly the recommendations regarding the sum given as ex-gratia to public employees.
"If you look at the position of the two main parties — the NPP and the NDC – when this report was out, it was evident that this was going to water down a lot of the privileges and powers that the political elites had been awarded under the 1992 Constitution."
"It's clear from their behaviors that they want that to happen, and this is actually working against us as a people." Clearly, the political elites have not demonstrated genuine commitment, and if you look at it, we cannot conclude that everything in this report would have been great for every single individual," he added.
Governments have not exhibited a willingness to scrutinize ex-gratia payments, according to Justice Yankson.
Dr. Yankson went on to suggest that some clauses in the Constitution need to be removed to allow for new changes, but that this could only happen if the Commission's recommendations are followed.
"We've been putting the provisions of the 1992 Constitution into effect for three decades, and it's evident that we're all at a crossroads."
We've realized that certain things will have to give way; we'll need to make some changes, and we had a good opportunity here, but it appears that we've blown it.
In an interview on Newsfile on Saturday, June 11, he remarked, "We need to go back and be dispassionate about these things and repair the wrongs that we are doing to ourselves."
On his side, the Director of the Trades Union Congress's (TUC) Labour Research and Policy Institute stated that a recent attempt to simplify gratuity payments for Article 71 Office holders proved to be difficult.
This, according to Dr. Kwabena Nyarko Otoo, is due to several clauses in the Constitution that have formed a stumbling block to the proper execution of the law.
The report of the Prof. Yaa Ntiamoa Baidu Committee on ex-gratia.
According to the research, the government should change the Constitution's compulsory payment of gratuity to MPs and incorporate it into a'superannuation' pension program that assures appropriate financial security for MPs in retirement.
The 2019 Committee suggested, among other things, that this mechanism be established to determine the salary of such public officers.
However, Dr. Kwabena Nyarko Otoo noted that the blockages arose when detractors claimed that ex-gratia is a constitutional provision that cannot be circumvented in order for the suggestion to pass.
According to him, if concerns like these aren't addressed, "nothing will be accomplished in this debate," and "all of that also necessitates a change in the article itself, a specific alteration of the article."
"There is both legal and technical work that has to be done," he told JoyNews' Samson Lardy Anyenini.
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