Presidential Spousal Allowance Is Unconstitutional But Parliamentary

 

Being a first lady in Ghana these days is becoming unattractive so now how can we motivate our daughters? Gone were the days we tell our daughters to learn hard in school so they can become a first lady but now if you even learn very hard and you become a first lady you are not entitled to an allowance or you have to refund it one day.

Wives will now begin to discourage their husbands from standing for presidency if they will get nothing in return. You can trust the power of women in this regard. They will no more accompany their husbands on all the presidential campaign trails if care is not taken.

So let me get this straight, the only benefit you get as a first lady is just prestige or what? But come to think of it, won't it be a nice idea if all our wives are on the payroll of organisations we work for? If that will be the case then companies will only employ bachelors and we will only accept to public offices those who are not married. 

If all our wives were being paid by the organizations we work for then we will have complete peace at home. At a point may be it can also be stretched to our 'side chicks' as we know it is happening in Ghana today. Some Politicians have put their girlfriends on government payroll. That is Ghana for you.

That said presidential spousal allowance is purely unconstitutional otherwise the wives of all public servants must also be placed on payroll. My research has revealed that it was a Parliamentary Act based on a committee's report to pay presidential spouses but it is not enshrined in the Constitution. This means paying presidential spousal allowance is not legal and must therefore be scrapped otherwise let us enshrine it in the Constitution.

The argument that other first ladies were paid so Rebecca Akufo-Addo must also be paid does not hold water. During their time this issue didn't come up so they got away with it, now it has come up so we have to deal with it. If someone goes to jail in a country where marijuana was not legalised but now it has been, you don't go and say free the old prisoners that were put in jail because they smoked marijuana. They must serve their full term although the law now has been scrapped. When laws change the effect of two dispensation of the law remains the same. So please no one should use previous first ladies as a yardstick to decide the merit of this issue.

If it is acceptable for spouses of presidents to be paid then just put it in the Constitution or let us come up with a seperate Presidential Act to govern that like it is in America. In this very case, there is also a test of Parliamentary Act against Constitutional Provisions and indeed we all know that the Constitution is supreme and will hold. Paying Presidential spouses is unconstitutional but parliamentary in this case.

Let us carefully separate a Parliamentary Act from a Constitutional Provision and between the two the Constitution is supreme. It is very good such issue has come up so it can receive just redress. The President himself is a lawyer so understands this and I think it is for that reason he advised his wife to refund the allowances. Whether that action is in good light or not means it is incomplete if the first lady continues to benefit from anything else coming from the State for which there is no provision to that effect. It means she must forfeit every other benefit she is receiving as the first lady of the country as a matter of conscience.

Personally I don't subscribe to the action taken by the first family because it has raised the bar for future first ladies and spited the old ones. What I think has happened here is that the first family have acted to quickly on this and should have waited for this matter to be justly decided at the appropriate quarters. They have allowed public opinion to have a better hold of themselves and acted incompletely because it means the first lady must cement her actions by forfeiting every other State benefit otherwise this action of refund is just a stunt. 

My take