NDC MP for Bolga East Dr. Dominic Ayine who is under investigation for stealing has sued the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) demanding details of his salary payments.
The MP is under investigations after it emerged he took double salary – one as a deputy minister under the Mahama administration and another as MP.
The Criminal Investigative Department has described the offence as stealing.
Checks by Myjoyonline.com indicate that a minister is paid ¢15,739 but a minister who is also an MP takes ¢16,423.
Some MPs serving as ministers took salaries for both positions and as a result, bagged ¢32,162 a month making them the highest paid political office holders in Ghana.
But the former deputy Attorney-General has gone to court seeking to quash the police investigations into the double salaries saga which could lead to criminal prosecution.
Dr. Ayine is demanding details of all payments made to him since May 2013.
Maintaining his innocence, the NDC MP argues it could not be his fault assuming without admitting he has been paid twice by the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department.
“He does not pay himself”, his lawyer Edudzi Godwin Tamakloe told Joy FM’s Newsnite Tuesday.
He referred to Act 23 of the 1992 Constitution which enjoins “administrative bodies and administrative officials [to] act fairly and reasonably and comply with the requirements imposed on them by law and persons aggrieved by the exercise of such acts and decisions shall have the right to seek redress before a court or other tribunal.
To him, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department did not act fairly with his client because, it failed to notify him of the double payments and yet the CAGD is the one complaining of making wrongful payments to his client.
“If under any circumstances he has been overpaid….then the best thing to do is to first notify him. That has not been done”, he said and concluded it “infringes on our right to administrative justice”.
But Edudzi Tamakloe said for the police to go after his client for monies which he did not pay to himself shows his client is being targeted for political purposes.
The Controller has said it cannot be blamed for the payment of double salaries for some ministers under the Mahama led government.
Head of Payroll Elizabeth Osei told Joy News Thursday, her outfit acted on instructions from the Finance minister to pay ministers their agreed pay.
” Once you are a minister, we pay you…we did just that,” she said.
Majority leader Osei Kyei-Mensa Bonsu has explained taking double salary may be a “genuine oversight” for the first month but if an MP notices the trend over months, then the politician cannot feign ignorance.
Offering an explanation over how some MPs ended up with two paychecks, the Majority leader explained there was a lack of communication between the Finance Department at Parliament which pays the MPs and that of the Presidency which directs the CAGD to pay ministers and deputies.
If the two departments had communicated, it should have been possible to detect the payments early enough, he said.
Photo: From left; Haruna Iddrisu, Comfort Doyoe Cudjoe Ghansah, Eric Opoku and Alhaji Inusah Fuseini
Dr. Ayine is part of five other ministers under Mahama administration being investigated for taking double salaries.
NDC MP for Bawku Central Mahama Ayariga who held several ministerial positions and NDC MP for Ada East Comfort Doyoe Cudjoe-Ghansah who was Minister of state in-charge of Social and Allied Institutions are among those under investigations.
They have all denied any wrong doing.