Kufuor’s pension house still outstanding – Frank Agyekum

The official residential accommodation that is supposed to be offered former President John Agyekum Kufuor as part of his retirement package still remains outstanding eight years after he left office in January 2009, Mr Frank Agyekum, spokesperson of the Former President has said.

Two houses at Trasacco in Accra which were offered to former Presidents John Kufuor and John Rawlings during President J.E.A. Mills’ era were rejected by the two former Presidents on grounds that they were not consulted before the buildings were constructed for their inputs and preferences as custom demands.

Since then, apart from an office accommodation which has been given to Mr Kufuor at Cantonments in Accra, that of his official residential accommodation as constitutionally stipulated remains outstanding, Mr Frank Agyekum said in an interview on Asempa FM Monday afternoon.

In line with the Presidential Committee on Emoluments report, when President Kufuor left office in 2009 he indicated he preferred a bungalow at Cantonments in Accra to be used as an office and another as his residency but that request was rejected by the then President J.E.A. Mills administration.

After a rancorous ejection from the state facility initiated by a group of some young men, Mr Kufuor was later offered another bungalow at Cantonments to be used as his office.

He has since been operating from there and using his Airport West home as his official residence.

According to Mr Agyekum, in 2001, following the Greenstreet Presidential Committee on Emoluments report, former President Rawlings for instance was allowed to make a preference for his residential accommodation and office and he chose two bungalows at Ridge.

Similarly, he thinks Mr Kufuor should have been allowed to make