Am just thinking of an old man I know who worked for this country for 25 years and after his faithful service was given one-thousand and nine hundred Ghana cedis as his end of service benefit. I hope he will not have heart attack when he hears the benefit being given to our ex-presidents who professed to service the country selflessly. Anyway, I’m yet to come to terms with it. For me the argument whether someone sneaked it into parliament or not is neither here nor there. All parliamentarians should be dragged to court, prosecuted and jailed, though I have already convicted them, for causing financial loss to the state. How can they be paid by the state but fail to stop such a thing from coming out? They only chopped the money we gave them waawaa, nyafunyafu. They should be made to pay back. Now, I know someone who has worked for this country for 20 years and is now collecting around fifty Ghana cedis monthly as his pension pay. But here is a “broke economy” that is ready to give a million dollar seed money to set up a foundation, six fully insured cars with drivers and will be replaced every four years, two fully furnished houses, three state paid assistants, 60 days holiday abroad, 24 hour security etc. to a person who only served the country for eight years. Well, someone may say that my comparison is faulty because the two did not serve in the same capacity. Yes, it is very true but what is good for the goose must be good for the gander. If the state should think worthily of our ex-presidents then it should equally think worthily of the riff raffs. It should somehow be proportional. If the riff raffs don’t deserve better end of service benefits then it should be so with the ex-presidents and vice versa. Mr. Rawlings let me hope that the goodwill NDC is showing isn’t because they know their founder will lick his share of the salt. You have always advocated that the poor should be respected and be given their due. From your revolutionary days to now, even your recent unwarranted booms on President Mills was about the poor. You have distinguished yourself as the defender of the voiceless in this country and even your party’s ideology gives priority to the poor. And so, Mr. Ex-president, I appeal to your good conscience to decline this offer which seeks to further enrich the rich and trample underfoot the sweat of the poor. Demonstrate your solidarity with the poor, the solidarity you showed when fuel prices shot up, when prices of food became expensive, when a presidential palace was being built while hundreds of children have not classrooms to study, etc. demonstrate it. How can you accept such an offer from a country whose economy is broke? How can you accept such an offer from a country that is not able to provide enough money to pay the arrears of her working tax-payers? And how can you even entertain such an offer from a distressing, sick and moribund economy. Mr. Rawlings, don’t ditch your effort into the bin at this critical moment. Let what you stood for “the option for the poor” prevail. Will you like to swim in this extravagance and let your people sleep in hunger? Reject this offer Mr. Rawlings! Credit: Yirpaale Sondah [yirpaale.sondah@yahoo.com]