Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman, a member of the 7th Council of State, only attended one meeting during his time there.
A response that The Fourth Estate obtained from the Council of State as a result of persistent requests made in accordance with the Right to Information Act of 2019 (Act 899) contains information regarding the attendance records of individual Council of State members.
The president appointed Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman, a former Chairman of the Governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the Upper West Region, to the Council of State.
Even though he only attended the meeting once, he has confirmed to The Fourth Estate that he was compensated ex gratia.
attendance 1 The Council of State's plenary and committee meetings The Council of State versus The Fourth Estate The Council of State released information on member attendance after The Fourth Estate brought it to the Right to Information (RTI) Commission. In June 2022, The Fourth Estate submitted an RTI request, which was denied by the Council.
This forced this reporter to file a complaint with the RTI Commission for compensation. The RTI Commission included the Council of State's publicly available information in its October 12, 2022 response to The Fourth Estate.
However, as The Fourth Estate requested, the information does not include signed copies of attendance sheets. Additionally, it did not include the compensations given to Council of State members for attending the meetings.
"salaries and allowances of the Chairman and members of the Council of State are exempt information and cannot be made available to you," the RTI Commission ruled.
In June, the Fourth Estate made an application to the Council of State, asking for answers to 17 questions about the council that advised President Akufo-Addo during his first term, which spanned the years 2017 to 2020.
group_picture_council_of_state Members of the Council of State from 2017 to 2020 The request was based on questions about Togbe Afede XIV's admission that he had returned the ex-gratia that had been paid to him. After receiving salaries, allowances, and other benefits during their tenure, Council of State members received ex-gratia in the amount of GHc365,000.
The payment of GHc365,000 to him as ex-gratia, according to Togbe Afede XIV, the Paramount Chief of the Asogli State in the Volta Region, was "unconscionable" and "inappropriate." He stated that serving on the Council of State was a part-time job for which members were compensated appropriately.
The gesture made by Togbe Afede received mixed reactions. He was praised by a portion of the public, but some governing party loyalists attacked him. Paul Adom-Otchere, host of Metro TV's Good Evening Ghana, claimed, citing information from the Council of State, that Togbe Afede XIV only attended 16% of the meeting and suggested that he did not deserve the ex-gratia in the first place.
The information gathered by The Fourth Estate from the Council of State demonstrates that Paul Adom Otchere's claim is debunked to the letter.
Why Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman only attended one alhaji-short-council-of-state-list meeting in 2019? The information also revealed that Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman only attended one meeting of the Council of State in 2019.
In 2018, Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman, more commonly referred to as Alhaji Short, withdrew his application to run for the position of national chairman of the party.
In 2018, he was appointed by the president to the position of chairman of the board of the state-owned Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company Limited.
Chairman Short was also appointed by President Akufo-Addo to succeed Alhaji Mogtari Sahanun, a member of the Council of State from the Upper West Region who passed away in 2019.
He was already a member of the Bui Power Authority's board of directors prior to the two appointments.
Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman was sworn in as president in December 2019, but the Council of State's records show that he only attended one meeting that year.
He did, however, miss none of the Council of State's 29 plenary meetings in 2020. After the 32 meetings it held in 2017, the council held the second most meetings in 2020.
According to the records, the man he succeeded was also a member of the Council of State's Legal, Constitutional Affairs, and Petitions Committee. Since Alhaji Short took over, there is no record of him attending any committee meetings.
Major General Richardson Edwin Baiden (Rtd), like Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman, was appointed by President Akufo-Addo in 2019 to succeed Nana Kofi Obiri Egyir II of the Central Region.
According to the records maintained by the Council of State, Major General Richardson Edwin Baiden (Rtd) attended four meetings in 2019.
He attended 19 of the Council of State's 29 meetings in 2020, making a total of 23 meetings.
When The Fourth Estate contacted Alhaji Abubakari Abdul-Rahman for comment, he stated that he was unable to attend meetings because he had eye problems shortly after taking the Council of State position.
He said that he told the chairman of the Council of State about his situation and that he kept him informed of what happened on a regular basis.
Additionally, he left his position as chairman of the Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company Limited board and as a board member of the Bui Power Authority.
When asked if he was able to attend board meetings, he responded that he was able to "go and sit down and listen" to them.
On Togbe Afede's attendance council-of-state attendance sheet, Paul Adom-Otchere made the following false claim on his show on June 7, 2022: They (the Council of State) held 242 meetings in 48 months. The eminent Togbe Afede attended 39 of those 242 gatherings, which is 16% of the total number of gatherings he attended.
According to information obtained by The Fourth Estate from the Council of State, Togbe Afede XIV attended 57 of the 125 meetings he was expected to attend.
The chairman of the Council of State's Economy and Sustainable Development Initiative Committee (ESDIC) was Togbe Afede XIV.
From 2017 to 2020, the council held 114 plenary (general) meetings, while the ESDIC held 11 meetings, totaling 125.
Togbe Afede XIV attended 57 meetings, including 47 plenary meetings and 10 ESDIC meetings. Contrary to Paul Adom-Otchere's claim that he attended 16 percent of the meetings, this is 45.6%.
