Former Chief Justice Sophia Akufo has fired back at the President’s cousin, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, describing him as a “disturbance.”
The former CJ who picketed the Finance Ministry again on Tuesday said she is busy with life and “I don’t have time for things like that. People like that are not important to me or my life…”
She said Mr Asare Otchere-Darko “can call me paranoid, but I don’t care’ adding, “he doesn’t decide for me what I need to do and not do.”
The former CJ is worried about the fate of pensioners who are crying out against the inclusion of their funds in the ongoing debt restructuring.
The stateswoman finds it unfair that her colleagues will be subjected to the ordeal through the DDEP undertaken by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
According to her, as long as the situation has to do with the contractual rights of pensioners, she cannot sit unconcerned.
“I’m seeing it purely from a legal point of view, their contractual rights being threatened. Then I have to say something. I have to join them in solidarity. Their pain is my pain because I have retired sisters, I have retired friends, and so on and so forth,” she said on Friday.
She hoisted a placard with the inscription ‘We depend on our bond yields to pay our rent, medical bills, electricity bills and water bills.’
But Mr Otchere-Darko in a series of tweet on Sunday called out Madam Akuffo for picketing the Finance Ministry.
He said the former Chief Justice should have taken the time to understand issues pertaining to the ongoing DDEP before choosing the side of the pensioners.
(6) For a former CJ to take up a noble cause such as she did but at such late hour when all was done and for all that publicity, she owed it to herself and her social standing to have understood the issues far better than what she exhibited last Friday. She is bigger than that.
— Gabby Otchere-Darko (@GabbyDarko) February 12, 2023
According to Mr Otchere-Darko, government has reviewed its first position and settled on a 15% yield maturing in five years instead of the initial 15 years, and making it voluntary for individual bondholders to participate.
(5) I was among those who pleaded for the exemption of pensioners. But, the Govt had to balance all that with the need to protect the economy for the 33m population and settled on the 15% yield maturing in 5yrs instead of 15, and that the individual was FREE not to participate.
— Gabby Otchere-Darko (@GabbyDarko) February 12, 2023
“For a former CJ to take up a noble cause such as she did but at such late hour when all was done and for all that publicity, she owed it to herself and her social standing to have understood the issues far better than what she exhibited last Friday. She is bigger than that,” Mr Otchere-Darko tweeted.
(4) Why picket over something you don't like (the improved offer) when you have the right not to sign up? Sorry, but I struggle to get her emotional outburst over exemption! I hope she won't volunteer to picket tomorrow and on the same issues when the time to sign up has expired.
— Gabby Otchere-Darko (@GabbyDarko) February 12, 2023
But the former Chief Justice said she is unperturbed by his ranting.
She said Mr Otchere-Darko can call her paranoid all he wants but the matter at hand is “…talking about people who have served this country, very well and hard..not easy service…When you are not a member of government and you call yourself a member.”
