Richard Ahiagbah, NPP Communications Director
The Director of Communications of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has described former President John Mahama’s promise to review Article 71 as “inconsistent” with the opportunities previously presented to him to amend it, when he had power as the Vice-President and President of the country between 2009 and 2017.
He has therefore stated that Mr Mahama is only engaging in a grand electoral strategy driven by desperation and deception, adding that “Mahama, by the available records, has taken every entitlement due him”.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, the NPP Communications Director recounted that the Constitution Review Commission set up by the Mills-Mahama administration submitted its report on December 20, 2011, and the government issued a white paper accepting, among other things, the portion of the review relative to the provisions of Article 71.
Review failure
He said Mr Mahama became President in 2012, barely a year after the acceptance of the recommendations of the Constitution Review Commission.
“Notwithstanding that appointment and promise, he failed to review it. All President Mahama needed to do was to present a draft bill to Parliament per Article 290 (2) to trigger the amendment process. But as the talk master general, former president Mahama did not act on the White Paper,” he disclosed.
He added: “Mahama is the first living and serving President who added his spouse to the under-table payments, which used to be for widows of former Presidents only. How insincere and confused can a former President be if not for political mischief?”
He said what former President Mahama is saying today cannot be taken seriously “because he has already failed” Ghanaians on this matter.
“However, if former Mahama wants to be taken seriously, he should go ahead and repudiate all the Article 71 benefits he has gladly enjoyed from 2013 to date. But trust me, former President Mahama will not renounce these benefits because he loves the provisions of Article 71,” he stated.
Emolument benefits
The NPP Communications Director also refuted Mahama’s claims that he had been denied his privileges under Article 71 of the Constitution.
“We have assembled the relevant documentation that suggests former President Mahama is enjoying and has not been denied any of his article 71 guaranteed benefits. The conduct of former President Mahama threatens our democracy, peace and security. So, the question is, what does former President Mahama want to achieve with these needless falsehoods? Could it be so that he can pretend to champion the clamour for the repeal of Article 71? Evidence of this rather unholy politics of former President Mahama abounds,” he stated.
He further reiterated that the claim by Mahama that he pays his own bills is completely false.
“We have evidence of correspondence between former President Mahama’s office and the Chief of Staff contradicting his claims on the Ghana Tonight Show. We also have a letter from the former President’s office introducing his staff and whom the state should pay. We have correspondences from the office of the Chief of Staff facilitating the payment of these salaries,” he emphasised.
Mr Ahiagbah indicated that Mahama’s denial that he is actively accessing his emolument benefits simply exploits the sympathies of unsuspecting Ghanaians. He stressed that there is no record anywhere that the government had denied former President Mahama his emolument or entitlement.
The NPP Communications Director called on the former President to repudiate all the Article 71 benefits, if he is to be taken seriously.
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