After 23 years of selfless and dedicated
service to Ghana which saw him supervise six elections, former chair of the
Electoral Commission Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan was left 13 months without a penny
when he left office.The Controller and Accountant General's Department
ceased paying the monthly salary of the former EC chair in June 2015 and also
delayed paying his gratuities due to what officials of the department say were
bureaucratic processes which had to be followed.
Several calls, visits to
the Comptroller by officials of the Electoral Commission and close family
members to have Dr Afari-Gyan's retirement benefits paid yielded no results for
12 months.
On the 13th month after retirement, the month on which
Myjoyonline.com began investigations into why the retired statesman had not been
paid, officials of the Comptroller and Accountant General's Department paid the
lump sum owed him with a promise to begin paying arrears of his pension in
August 2016.
Background
On June 16, 2015, Dr Kwadwo Afari- Gyan
bid farewell to his compatriots at the Electoral Commission where he had served
for 23 years as deputy Electoral Commissioner and later as
Commissioner.
Per Article 44 (2) Dr Afari Gyan was entitled to the same
conditions of service as the justice of a Court of Appeal. He was an Article 71
office holder and deserved a treatment in retirement similar to how the state
will treat, the president, a minister, a parliamentarian or judge in a superior
court.
At the very least, he was entitled to a lump sum payment shortly
after retirement. Then, he should have been paid all his unpaid salaries which
he didn’t receive after going on retirement. But none of those entitlements were
paid him for 13 months.
The retired EC Chairman, through relatives and
officials of the Electoral Commission had chased officials of the Comptroller to
have the entitlements paid but to no avail.
Sources close to Dr Afari
Gyan, who did not want to be named admitted to Myjoyonline.com that the lack of
payment was taking a heavy toll on the finances of the retired
statesman.
He needed the money to put finishing touches to his
uncompleted Haatso residence and to take care of the day-to-day
expenses.
But as a statesman who did not want his situation to be made
public, he chose to suffer in silence for 13 months. Within that period, Dr
Afari Gyan spent most of his time at his farm.
Sources at the Electoral
Commission also said officials were frustrated by the delays in the payment of
Dr Afari Gyan’s benefits.
A deputy commissioner on July 22, 2016, in a
text message said: " I am seriously working on it. Please help if
possible."
Controller Response
In a joint interview with the
Controller and Accountant General, Mr Seidu Kotomah and the Director of
Pensions, Mrs Elizabeth Osei, with the PRO looking on, the officials conceded
there were delays in paying Dr Afari Gyan's entitlements.
They also
admitted that for 13 months Dr Afari Gyan received nothing because they had to
conduct the necessary due diligence and partly because of delays at the Finance
Ministry where approval had to come from before the money would be
paid.
"It is unfortunate that is has taken such a long period. I do not
want to hold brief for anybody and I do not want to pass the back to anybody. It
is unfortunate. It is something that we have realised as not acceptable and we
have commenced measures to address this and shorten the processes that are
leading to this long period of waiting for one’s pension," Mr Kotomah
explained.
Mrs Osei attributed the delays to a modified rule in 2015
which required that all gratuities that exceeded a certain threshold had to be
taken to the Finance Ministry for certification and payment.
"The
decision to seek clearance from the Ministry Finance was taken some time 2015 so
there must have been a transitional period that is likely to have slowed things
down a little. That is why you see Afari Gyan's issue running into the ensuing
year. Ordinarily it would not have been so," she explained.
According to
Mr Kotomah it would ordinarily have taken 90 days for due diligence to be done
and monies paid if the gratuity was below the threshold but given that Dr Afari
Gyan's document had to be taken to the Finance Ministry, it took more 270 days
from the day his file was received from the Electoral
Commission.
Recounting the trail of events leading to the payment, Mr
Kotomah said Dr Afari Gyan's documents were received from the Electoral
Commission in August 2015, three months after he had retired; the documents were
forwarded to the Finance Ministry in March 2016 for validation, after which they
returned to the Comptroller in June 2016 and the lump sum payment done at the
tail end of July 2016.
Way Forward
Mr Kotomah said they have taken
internal measures to ensure the turnaround time for the payment of gratuities is
reduced drastically.
“It is something that we are conscious of. We have
taken steps to restructure the place. We have moved staff about to make sure
that we bring efficiency. The processes that are in place, we have also reviewed
them. For instance from next month we will stop sending the above threshold
documents to Finance because that also adds to the delay.
"We believe
that if we put these measures in place from our side, we would address the issue
to an appreciable level," he promised.
Mr Kotomah was quick to advise
other institutions to feed the Controller General’s Department with information
about retirees early enough for the processes to begin. He regretted that in
most case some institutions submit the documents late only for the beneficiaries
to blame Controller for delays.
When he was asked if Afari Gyan will be
paid an interest to compensate for the number of months his entitlements
remained unpaid, Mr Kontomah said he was not in the position to determine
that.
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