Ex-gratia brouhaha: Comedy is important but let's be serious - Kwaku Azar 'fires' critics of Togbe Afede

Togbe Afede refunds ex-gratia

Ghanaians hail traditional ruler over patriotic act

Adom-Otchere ask Togbe Afede to refund more than ex-gratia

A US-based Ghanaian law professor, Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has hit hard at some individuals who have been criticising the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, President of Asogli Traditional Area after he decided to

Read full articlereturn over GHC365k paid into his account as ex-gratia.

In a post on his social media page, the lawyer stressed that the number of times Togbe Afede’s committee in the Council of State met was not good grounds to measure performance.

He further questioned the assertion that Togbe Afede’s committee performed abysmally for meeting eleven times in the four-year period.

The CDD-Ghana fellow insisted that the use and interpretation of data ought to be taken seriously.

“Committee X met 52 times and collected sitting allowances 52 times. Therefore, the Chairman of Committee Y, which met 11 times and collected sitting allowances 11 times, is not as effective or serious or hardworking as the Chairman of Committee X.

“How can one so confidently, yet so wrongly, assert that holding 11 meetings is abysmal performance? Why is 52 fantastic and 11 abysmal? Should we target meeting 3 times a day, including weekends?

“When I say 'nonfa nkoaaa', Yaanom will say I should not say that so I won’t say that. Look, comedy is important and should be accommodated but let us be serious about how we use and interpret data,” Kwaku Azar emphasized on his Facebook wall.

Togbe Afede XIV in a statement dated June 6, 2022, confirmed that he had refunded over ¢365,000 ex-gratia paid to him for serving on the Council of State between 2017 and 2020.

He indicated that he felt uncomfortable with the money paid for part-time work which he received monthly salaries and other benefits.

Togbe Afede mentioned that the refund was hinged on his “general abhorrence of the payment of huge Ex Gratia and other outrageous benefits to people who have by their own volition offered to serve our poor country.”

However, the Host of Good Evening Ghana Paul Adom-Otchere has been unimpressed by the gesture accusing him of attending only 39 out of 242 meetings of the Council of State – a claim the Asogli state has dismissed as a lie.

Mr. Adom-Otchere countered that in the Thursday, June 9 edition of his show insisting that Togbe Afede attended only 16% of sittings of the Council of State.

Showing a paper trail regarding the attendance of meetings by members of the Council of State, including Togbe Afede, he said, “I have to restate from the records that he [Togbe Afede] attended 16 percent of the meetings [by the Council of State]…I am not in this job for whatever people will say. I have been doing this job for 20 years and will not come and talk about something from on top of my head.”

“I have been leading for the past 20 years, so, when I come and say something and people say it is not true, I just don’t understand what that means,” he added.

With evidence of the meetings by some of the committees that Togbe Afede XIV was the chair, records presented by Paul Adom-Otchere showed that the ‘Economy and Sustainable Development Initiatives Committee’ (ESDIC) had only eleven meetings for the four years that Togbe Afede was the chairman.

“In the period [of four years], Togbe’s Committee - ESDIC - had abysmal eleven meetings thus, four meetings in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and one meeting in 2020. That is the record.

“Why did his committee hold far lesser meetings than the rest?” he asked.