Award-winning journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni has rallied behind the President on his decision to include the first and second lady on the list of article 71 office holders.
President Akufo-Addo has come under intense criticism following his decision to approve the recommendations of the Ntiamoah-Baidu committee to pay salaries to the first and second ladies.
However, strangely, the President’s unpopular decision has been supported by government’s fierce critic, Manasseh Azure Awuni.
In a Facebook Post, Manasseh wrote,
It’s good how Ghanaians are concerned about the payment of presidential spouses. The argument against the payment is mainly about safeguarding the public purse.
This level of outrage could possibly force our leaders to sit up if they were applied to weightier matters of public sector corruption, wastage and the ritual payment of judgment debt.
I am quite liberal when it comes to what we legally pay to our politicians and public officials. That’s not what makes us poor.
A single minor deal by a state agency can cause us to lose more money than the salaries we’ll pay to the presidential spouses in the next 50 years. And such deals have become normal.
However, whenever cases of such gargantuan theft are uncovered, the public doesn’t get agitated. They mostly act as if they don’t care. Sometimes they even defend the perpetrators.
What could be the reason? Is it because people don’t understand the issues, or their blood only boils when they know who the direct beneficiaries of the official payments are?
What could possibly explain this?
Source: GhanaFeed.Com
