The Brong Ahafo regional Chairman of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) Alfred Tuah Yeboah has filed a suit at the Supreme Court challenging the retiring package paid every four years to Members of Parliament on expiration of a Parliament.
According to him, the treatment given to MPs is not in conformity with the 1992 constitution.
“If you’re an MP and you take your retirement benefit it means that you’re now out of parliament that is the essence of retirement. Who in Ghana has gone on retirement three, four, or five times. If that was the intention of article 71, then that will mean that all Superior Court Judges will have to retire every four years, take their benefits and come back.
“A judge will take his retirement benefit when he/she gets to his retirement age of either 65 or 70, but MPs take it every four years…I think it’s unconscionable and that is not a rational of article 71, finetune it and make sure that people do not benefit unduly under the guise of retiring every four years.”
Presently retiring Supreme Court and High Court Judges, the President and his vice and outgoing ministers and MPs are paid huge retiring packages popularly known as ex-gratia but MPs are paid such monies every four years.
