No salary arrears has been paid to First & Second ladies – Presidency insists TUC Boss lied

Dr. Yaw Baah, the Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has been asked to be a true gentleman and render an apology to the First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo and the Second Lady, Samira Bawumia for issuing a public statement which said the two had been paid “salary arrears dated back to January 2017”.

The TUC boss had said he has information that as a matter of fact the two ladies had been paid the said arrears and asked that they should return the payments immediately.

However, according to the  Director of Communications at the Presidency,  Mr. Eugene Arhin, the TUC Boss peddled falsehood in his statement because no such salary arrears whatsoever had been paid to Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Samira Bawumia and therefore the two deserve an apology for the falsehood told  to the general public about them.

The TUC boss is yet to respond to the challenge by rendering the  apology or proving his claim that truly as a matter of fact, salary arrears dated back to January 2017 had been paid to Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Samira Bawumia.

Dr Yaw Baah,  on July 11, 2021, signed and issued a public statement which  said the  TUC had followed the ongoing public debate on the payment of salaries to spouses of presidents and vice-presidents and that the body was against it

One  of the paragraphs in the said statement read “Salary arrears dated back to January 2017 have since been paid to the wives of President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia, in accordance with the Committee’s recommendation which was approved by NDC and NPP Members of Parliament.”

Eugene Arhin however insists the TUC Secretary General had goofed.

“Clearly he was wrong, as no such “salary arrears” have been paid. Can he, therefore, do the needful and apologize to the First and Second Ladies for this false statement?”, Mr. Arhin wrote in his official Facebook page.

The statement issued by the TUC noted that “ the spouses of presidents and vice presidents are not specified under Article 71 of the Constitution of Ghana. The question is: why should they receive salaries pegged to emoluments and privileges for office holders specified under Article 71?

“It is true that salaries of some presidential staffers not specified under Article 71 receive emoluments that are the level of ministers or even higher, in accordance with Presidential Office Act, 1993(Act 463), Legal Service Act and other acts. But it should be noted that the duties and responsibilities of Article 71 office holders and all jobholders in the public service, including presidential staffers, are clear. The spouses of presidents and vice presidents have  not been officially assigned any such duties and responsibilities. Therefore, they are not qualified to receive salaries from the public purse.

It said “the ongoing passionate debate indicates clearly that this issue is very important to Ghanaians.

We would like to advise President Akufo-Addo to use all the powers accorded him by the Constitution of Ghana, first, to stop the payment of the salaries to his wife and the wife of the Vice President immediately, until they are officially assigned duties and responsibilities. The President should also ensure that all such payments made to his wife and the wife of Vice President are refunded immediately.”