The Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama has challenged former President John Dramani Mahama for pledging to pay assembly members should he win power on December 7.
According to her, it is an impossible thing to do considering the large number of assembly men. He made reference to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) manifesto in 2012 where they promised to do that but failed.
Speaking at a sod-cutting ceremony by President Akufo Addo , of a project under the Ghana Secondary Cities Support Program (GSCSP) in New Juaben South Municipality, the Local Government Minister said, “I understand the former President, John Mahama met with the GAAM which is not an official association of assembly members to start with and he promised that when he wins which is not going to be the case he is going to pay assembly members a monthly allowance or salary.”
She explained,“to start with, the association that he met tried to organize when he was the President and they were prevented because they were told that there is a recognize assembly members association that is the National Association of Assembly Members of Ghana (NALAG), they prevented them, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is democratic, we have allowed freedom of association and now the NDC is meeting them instead of (NALAG).”
“I want to tell you that, John Mahama’s promise to pay assembly members was in their manifesto in the 2012 elections but he didn’t do anything about it. Now they have no argument against the bravest performance in decentralization and local development, so they are now promising ‘rooftop promises’ that they cannot offer.”
Hajia Alima added, “Mr Mahama was not able to pay assembly members about 10,000 in number, nurses and teachers allowances, so would you expect him to put 10,000 assembly members on the payroll. He knows it is impossible, the real situation is that the way the decentralization scheme has been designed, they are like a board of the assembly and are not a full-time employee.”
John Mahama had few weeks ago met assembly members and pledged to pay them monthly allowance should he come back to power on December 7.
Source: GhanaFeed.com
