Ex-gratia Award accepted in full?

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

January 3, 2010

It may now come as a shock to many that the “Ex-gratia award will be implemented in full this time,” a source close to Ghanadot has disclosed.  But, don’t be surprised. This is Ghana. We first muddy the pond and then drink from it later.

What do I mean?  After months of tampering with the idea and wondering where the ex-gratia package went, it is now highly possible, that the “ex-gratia” package is back on track for full implementation, thanks to our style of implementing programs.

The Ex-Gratia package has long been accepted as a good idea by some, even if it should be classified as a necessary evil.  The salient part of this idea is that it could be a cheaper way to move African presidents out of office, starting with our own.

To keep them “gratified” in retirement is cheaper in every sense than to remove them by force from office as past coups have done.

But, earlier last year, this “ex-gratia” package proposal opened with controversy. Some did not take the proposal very well, the poor and the disgruntled class of politicians, especially. 

The interpretation they had was that the package was a robbery of the highest rank since it went only to benefit the elite, the already privileged in society, counting from the top the President of the nation.

The news on “Ex-Gratia’ was enough to feed on the bile.  And the disgruntled felt it was an unreasonable or unfair largesse coming from our meager treasuries.

Understandably, the poor had reason to feel cheated as you would if your only means of transportation were the two spindles under your torso, acting as legs.  The “Ex-Gratia” package, going to those who already own a fleet of cars would not be an appealing concept.

That the package allows a former president to own six cars for example, as part of the “Ex-Gratia”, regardless of the reasons given, maybe too much for your bile too, given the already poor state of your personal affairs.

It is hard to blame the truly poor for having this reflex against the package.  A human ex-president with six cars would be too much a recommendation.

But, if you happened to be among the same political elite class, chances are that you understand the aims of the package very well, and possibly within the secret recesses of your brain, you have already approved the deal.  However, your problem facing the proposal would be how not to allow the political controversy to go to waste.

Your true agenda, as a disgruntled politician, not a true statesman, might of course be hidden this time.  Had circumstances been different and with you holding the upper hand to propose the same “Ex-Gratia” deal, you would have jumped for the idea.

For a while, these same disgruntled politicians have eagerly pushed the opposition to the “Ex-Gratia” as an act of doing the public good. Had they been successful, they would have pushed the masses beyond the point of the reasonable.

And now how do the same disgruntled explain to the masses that the Ex-Gratia package proposal came under a UNDP sponsorship?…….READ MORE

 

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, January 3, 2010

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