General News of Monday, 8 April 2013

Source: peacefmonline

Ex-gratia brouhaha: Kofi Jumah apologises for comments

Maxwell Kofi Jumah, a former Member of Parliament for Asokwa has apologized for denigrating or suggesting that politicians are more important than teachers and doctors.

The former MP is said to have stated that the roles of teachers and doctors can in no way be compared to that of politicians in an interview on an Accra based Adom FM, following a public outburst against service benefits of MPs.

MPs for the 5th Parliament of the Fourth Republic have been paid in excess of 39 million cedis as end of service benefits. The payment was said to have been done in three installments ending March 2013.

This has received a lot of public outcry especially with teachers and doctors unsatisfied with their remunerations.

In an interview on Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’, Kofi Jumah indicated that he has been misconstrued but however, apologises for any harm caused.

“All I said was that the President is the one in charge in this country, if he is not there, the vice President takes over and if both are not there the speaker of parliament is in charge then to the Chief Justice, Ministers and Members of Parliament and the list goes down and down…where in lies the insult?

We are all under one person or the other. If I accuse the doctors and teachers of being a second class citizen then I am also one because I am under someone. I have even been a teacher before…God created all of us as one but in terms of leadership, there is hierarchy. I was taken on the wrong note and misunderstood. I am sorry if that is the implication of what I said; I didn’t mean to sound insulting or denigrating…”