Mahama to pay each assembly member at least GH¢1,000 as monthly salary if elected

The next National Democratic Congress (NDC) under John Mahama will pay each assembly member a monthly salary of at least GHC1, 000, MyNewsGh.com has learnt.

“I did the mathematics; elected assembly members are 55000. If we give each of them GHC1,000 a month, that is GH¢55 million a year”, former President John Dramani Mahama hinted when he toured Mepe in the North Tongu constituency of the Volta Region on Monday, 17 August 2020.

According to him, if President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo alone could spend GHC69 million on travels in nine months in 2019, then the money could be found to pay assembly members.

“So, if the President alone can travel [for] GH¢69 million cedis in nine months, why can’t we find the money to pay assembly members?” the NDC flagbearer asked party supporters.

Meanwhile, after Mr Mahama’s promise to pay assembly members during a meeting with the Ghana Association of Assembly Members (GAAM) at his office in Accra, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama, said it was a rehashed 2012 manifesto promise of the NDC which the former President never fulfilled as President between 2013 and 2016 while in office

“He [Mahama] knows it is impossible, the real situation is that the way the decentralisation scheme has been designed, they are like a board of the assembly and are not a full-time employee”, the Minister stated.