Franklin Cudjoe* describes how legislators pad their own and their presidents' pockets Often, we have heard about the difficulty associated with running for political office in Africa -- from the paucity of campaign finance to the use of uncivil and unconstitutional means to best opponents. Of course, presidents need to be assured adequate income for life, if only to make it less likely that they will stay forever and/ or raid the government's coffers while they have the chance. However, the proposed changes to the remuneration of Ghana's presidents and legislators do not meet this requirement. The current emoluments, worth $25 million, are far in excess of any reasonable return to Ghana's politicians, and were hastily approved by faceless legislators (at least none has owned up to reading the entire Chinery-Hesse report on the suggested emoluments). Nor will we ever know who approved of them, because individual voting records in parliament are not made public. The night before the previous parliament and president's term expired, legislators and the erstwhile executive colluded to award themselves these sumptuous emoluments without any shame. What was particularly shameful is the retirement package for former presidents. Some observers have compared the proposed retirement packages of our past presidents and that of retired American presidents. US Senate sources show that president George W Bush will receive a $191,000 pension, life-time secret service protection for him and his spouse, official travel expenses with two members of staff, no cars, no houses, no end-of- service gratuity, that he will have to rely on albeit tax exempt private funds for his presidential library. A president's widow receives a lifetime pension of $20,000 per year. Ghana's Chinery-Hesse Committee report approved the following for ex- presidents: a lump-sum $400,000, six fully maintained, insured, fuelled and chauffeur-driven cars to be replaced every four years. The fleet includes three salon cars, two crosscountry cars and one all-purpose vehicle. In addition, he gets two fully furnished residences befitting a former president at place of his choice, 60 days overseas travel with three staff members each year until he dies, $1 million seed money for the setting up of a foundation, a 24- hour security service and an unspecified budget for entertainment each year. Keep in mind that the per capita incomes of the two countries are poles apart: $46,000 for the US and $1,400 for Ghana. And that the US can afford a financial bailout for their broken economy, but Ghana cannot. We a have 14 per cent budget deficit and our currency is fast losing its strength against the US dollar. Besides this financial excess, there are other public financial scandals yet to be unearthed, three of which are already in the region of $150 million. In the midst of the furore, the current president's own nominee for the Works and Housing Ministry, himself a legislator, authorised payment of the controversial end-of-service package when he had temporary oversight of the Finance Ministry. He has since been sacked as a would-be minister. So, will our politicians learn any lessons? We have seen all of these before. In 2005, many African politicians and bureaucrats greeted with glee the G8's debt relief package, not because it was going to lift their countries out of poverty -- their reasons were far more self-interested. They even started planning how they were going to spend the "loot". In Kenya, while religious vigils were held for the country's debt to be forgiven, corruption scandals hit the country's AIDS programme. Years on, Kenyan legislators earn fat salaries and retire on generous pensions rivalling some of the most influential corporate executives in the developed world. Two weeks after the G8 debt relief package was announced in Gleneagles, the then majority leader of Ghana's parliament announced a new package for legislators, giving them $25,000 car loans and a $60- a-day rent allowance, free fuel, and chauffeur-driven perks. It is important for citizens to remind politicians that the decision to lead was not imposed on them. It was theirs to choose. They must spare us any future connivance to plunder our resources. But aren't we at their mercy? Frederic Bastiat, the French journalist, economist and philosopher wrote in the 19th century that "the state is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." The shameful defence of the controversial end-of-service package by Ghanaian legislators again reminds me of Bastiat's warnings. "Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve... But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay... No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic." * The writer is editor of www.AfricanLiberty.org and executive director of Ghanaian think tank IMANI.
