Cadres describe double salary allegations as propaganda

Some Cadres of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Greater Accra Region have described the indictment of 25 NDC MPs over the supposed double salaries as a misadventure.

They also accused the new Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah of betraying her lack of intelligence in the issue at stake.

“In other jurisdictions, this woman would resign immediately, the ineptitude on display is a total shock, in indicting the MPs, the CID boss and her minions betrayed a lack of appreciation of the mechanism of public sector wage administration, especially as it relates to Ministers and MPs.”

Mr Fred Atsu Anthony and Mr Nelson Adu, the two Cadres who addressed a news conference in Accra said it was a well-known fact that MPs do not receive their salaries and benefits until they had finished serving their tenure, at which point the government would have set up a committee to determine their benefits.

“As those benefits are determined by a committee, how can anyone claim that any MP has received double salaries?” Mr Anthony said.

He added that if even it were true that any MP had received double salaries, the blameable person to indict was the committee that determined their benefits and the Accountant General’s Department which paid such MPs and not the MPs themselves.

Mr Nelson Adu, another Cadre, said that even in the case where it was necessary to invite the MP to help with investigation into that issue, such invitations were supposed to be done secretly, and by Controller and Accountant General’s Department and not the Police.

He suggested that the Police’ invitation of the 25 NDC MPs to help with investigations into the supposed double salary issue was a totally misplaced development that showed that the Police CID had become a propaganda tool in the house of the NPP government to witch-hunt its opponents. 

Mr Adu said surprisingly, after the CID had written to invite the 25 NDC MPs, it turned round to write back to the MPs to inform them that the invitation to 18 out of the 25 of them was a mistake and that those MPs should not honour the invitation.

He said, the CID’s own retreat on the issue, clearly showed that the earlier indictments had not been thought through. “It was propaganda that seems to have been intentionally staged to divert the attention of Ghanaians from the United States of America military base issue over which the government has so far received a lot of flak.

“It obviously was inept propaganda that had informed the indictment of the 25 MPs and this is appalling… the CID was used to divert attention from the military base issue, but this is bad; the CID is supposed to be a professional body, It is unfortunate that Mr Alban Bagbin, the best Presidential material among NDC 2020 flagbearer aspirants without any corruption tag, who happens to be the second Deputy speaker of Parliament, has also fallen victim to this and no amount of propaganda from within the NDC and the NPP can thwart God’s agenda for his life ,” Mr. Adu said.

Source: GNA