Kow Essuman, a former Legal Adviser to former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has slammed the Minister of State in charge of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, for misleading Ghanaians regarding the salary and emolument structure of the current Mahama government.
In a social media post, Kow Essuman challenged Kwakye Ofosu, who claimed the remuneration framework being used by the Mahama administration was approved during the tenure of former President Akufo-Addo.
According to Kow Essuman, Article 71 of the 1992 Constitution clearly states that salaries and allowances for the President, staff of the presidency and other executive office holders are determined by Parliament.
He argued that the President has no authority to determine his own salaries and emoluments, or those of his staff.
In a post on X, Kow Essuman, detailed, “Felix Kwakye Ofosu, MP, claims that the salaries and emoluments currently being paid to the staff of the Presidency were approved under President Akufo-Addo. That statement is MISLEADING, and as a Minister for Government Communications, he ought to know better.
Let me state the constitutional position plainly.
The President has no authority to determine his own salaries and emoluments, or those of his staff. Article 71(2) of the Constitution is unambiguous: the salaries and allowances due to the President, the staff of the Presidency, and the Executive “shall be determined by Parliament on the recommendations of the committee referred to in clause (1) of this article.” It is Parliament that determines the remuneration of the Executive. Conversely, it is the President who approves the remuneration of Parliament. No impression should therefore be given, whether out of IGNORANCE or MISCHIEF, that President Akufo-Addo determined the salaries and allowances payable to himself and his staff. He did not. He had no constitutional authority to do so.
The current salary structure was approved by Parliament on 6 January 2025. It did not exist during the tenure of President Akufo-Addo. It was approved on the very day President Akufo-Addo was handing over power; the same day he had given President Mahama a tour of the Jubilee Villa. I know this with absolute certainty because I personally took receipt of Parliament’s communication to the President on that date. Felix Kwakye Ofosu cannot credibly claim to be unaware of this. No impression should be given that this was a salary structure that accompanied or defined the Akufo-Addo Presidency. It did not. It arrived on the last day of it.
And that is what makes what followed so telling.
The approval of 6 January 2025 has resulted in President Mahama’s government paying itself: the President, Government Communications Minister, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, and their entire Executive apparatus,
under that very structure, while simultaneously refusing and neglecting to pay the arrears lawfully due to the officials and staff who served under President Akufo-Addo. And if that were not enough, the Finance Minister, who is himself a member of the Legislature, quietly paid Parliament (including the Finance Minister) their arrears and allowances as far back as May 2025. He settled his own colleagues (including himself) in the 8th Parliament while leaving the Executive unpaid for 18 months and counting.
I do not consider this an administrative oversight. It is a deliberate, politically motivated, and discriminatory distribution of public funds, and it is nothing short of an abuse of office.
Felix Kwakye Ofosu, MP, has the audacity (maybe because of where he sits now) to dismiss the justified complaints about this 18-month delay as “nothing new or unheard of.” I have a simple question for him: when he served in President Mahama’s first government, did he wait 18 months for what was due to him? Did his colleagues? Let him answer that question honestly before lecturing others about what is normal.
Now, this brings me, once again, to the matter of his credibility. A Minister who mischaracterises the Constitution, misrepresents the timeline of a parliamentary approval, dismisses discriminatory non-payment as routine, and is serially contradicted by the very facts he cites has no business styling himself as an arbiter of truth on these matters. He has been misleading Ghanaians, and the constitutional record has exposed him.
I encourage him to be more truthful in his pronouncements, not as a political courtesy, but as a basic duty of public office. Ghanaians deserve accurate information, not spin dressed up as communication.
The facts are not on his side. The Constitution is not on his side. And increasingly, the public record is not on his side either”.
See the post below:
Felix Kwakye Ofosu, MP, claims that the salaries and emoluments currently being paid to the staff of the Presidency were approved under President Akufo-Addo. That statement is MISLEADING, and as a Minister for Government Communications, he ought to know better.
— Kow Essuman (@kaessuman) June 16, 2026
Let me state the… pic.twitter.com/XBTij87fi2
