Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo may have hanged up her wig and gown, but not her legal prowess to hold her own in intellectual discourse.
Otherwise, a quiet and private person, she has shown her vociferous side by fighting on the side of pensioners in the ongoing Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
The deadline offered by the government for bondholders to sign onto the DDEP has elapsed, but the war of words continues.
The stateswoman described as wicked and insensitive the decision by the Finance Ministry to include bonds of pensioners in the programme.
President Nana Akufo-Addo appointed Sophia Akuffo as Chief Justice in 2017, and she also served as Chair of the COVID-19 National Trust Fund in 2020 after her retirement.
However, she has fearlessly criticised the government’s recent economic restructuring programme, and the latest person to go on her chopping board is Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, a leading member of the NPP.
Mr Otchere-Darko had stated that he did not get the “fuss” the former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo made over the inclusion of pensioners in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
“Why picket over an offer that you have the liberty not to accept?” he quizzed.
But Ms Akuffo has fired back.
“He [Gabby] doesn’t decide for me what I need to do and what I do not need to do. It is as simple as that.”
“I don’t have time for things like that. People like that are not important to me or to my life. He is a disturbance. That’s all I have got to say about it,” the former Chief Justice said.
“Gabby Otchere-Darko can call me paranoid. I don’t care “.
“We are talking about people, we are talking about human beings, we are talking about people who have served this country, and have served well and have served hard, not easy service.”
“When you are not a member of government and you are calling yourself a member of government, so that is all I have got to say about this matter, that is why I am still sitting here [to picket]” Justice Sophia Akuffo said.
Turning her attention to developments on the process and the handling of the pensioners’ request by the Ministry of Finance, she stated.
“Now the way things are going, what I sense and what I smell is the creation of two categories of people, two classes of people. Those who have been exempted by the issuer… now they are calling those who refused to sign onto the debt exchange, they are calling them self-exempted, they simply refused to sign and they simply want to stand by the original bond that they had with the government.”
“The word bond is not used as a casual term, bond means tied to [my word is my bond], and when a government bond can be tossed up and down like that, flip flop, that is a serious thing. For me, my problem with this whole thing is the destruction of the image of this nation, and something which is being done which will last for generations. It took a long time before the normal Ghanaian will even buy anything that is government, because there was always the suspicion, tomorrow, you don’t know what happen.
Now they are re-introducing that… The letter that was written to the minister, exempt us from your programme, that is the gist, we are pensioners. Up till now, I have seen a copy of the letter, up till now, there is not even a note of acknowledgement and yet a few days ago, similar letters written that had been written to the Minister has been responded to, whereby he has categorically exempted other groups.
