Ghanaians have reacted with fury over the decision by the country’s parliament to award £2,500-a-month salaries to the wives of the president and vice-president as the country faces economic turbulence.
Rebecca Akufo-Addo, 70, the first lady, and Samira Bawumia, 40, the wife of the vice-president, will get the same money as a cabinet minister for their supportive roles in government, with payments backdated four years under a move approved by a parliamentary committee.
The announcement has led to outrage, with many calling the decision indefensible and opposition MPs filing lawsuits to reverse it — £15,000 a year is considered a good wage in Ghana and a quarter of the population lives under the poverty line.
“Is Ghana serious? How can the leaders mismanage the economy like this, how can a slow developing country like this be paying the wives of the president such sumptuous money whiles the youth are jobless,” Christieluck Linford Andoh, a disability campaigner, said on Twitter.
Another Twitter user, Abena Nsia Nyarko, asked how the first lady felt to receive such a windfall of backdated pay, worth £120,000, just for being the president’s wife “while women across the country deliver their children on bare floors”.
source: The Times
