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The sore issue of former President John Agyekum Kufuor�s ex-gratia has resurfaced after a lull, raking a lot of dust on the political plane, as a flimsy cheque is thrown back on the face of the Presidency for want of details among others. The subject popped up once more when President John Evans Atta Mills announced during a media engagement last week that his predecessor has received the end-of-service package. Rather than douse the abrasive political subject, which raged for a long time until it went into hibernation, it has put on the public domain the issue of integrity and sincerity. Whereas the Presidency claims the benefits have been paid, former President Kufuor�s office states the contrary. As to who is being economical with the truth is a subject which has attracted the interest of fastidious Ghanaians as they follow the unfolding development. Spokesperson for the former president, Frank Agyekum, having earlier stated that his boss has remunerated his office staff including his security details from his own kitty, is busy once more parrying the assertion of President Mills. In a statement on the issue, he denied outright that his boss has received any such benefit, belying therefore President Mills� word. He traced the genesis of the alleged payment to last December when an officer presented a cheque with a face value of GH�90,000 to former President Kufuor, a document which was rejected. The cheque, he said, was rejected for want of details, lacking, as it did, information about the basis of the payment, leaving the former president with no option than to return it for the appropriate thing to be done. �For the avoidance of doubt, the office of the former President wishes to state that no ex gratia has been paid to him,� he said. The Chinery-Hesse report commissioned before the assumption of power by President Mills recommended that ex-officials be paid benefits equivalent to seven months for each year they served, multiplied by the number of years. The details of the foregone were the subject of controversy in the early days of the Mills� presidency, especially when the new administration questioned the integrity of the approval by Parliament of the recommendations. Even as the arguments raged on, some MPs, it was discovered, had already withdrawn their benefits from their accounts, a point which according to proponents of the Chinery-Hesse option, was testimony to the fact that due process had been followed. Be that as it may, President Mills ordered a freeze on further payments, creating a lot of controversy on the political scene. An Ishmael Yamson committee was empanelled and tasked with taking another look at the earlier recommendations, coming out eventually with revised details; the bottom-line of which was that, instead of basing payments on seven months of each year served, four months rather be applied in the calculations. The recent receipt of their benefits by MPs has aggravated the already worrying situation as it appears they received six months of each year served. The question being asked is, which of the recommendations is being applied under the circumstances? As at the time of filing this report, Mr Agyekum noted, no response had been received from the Presidency regarding the raised queries. The Minority in Parliament has jumped into the fray, with their leader, Hon Osei Kyei-Bonsu, demanding details about which of the options was applied for the payment of the benefits. He pointed out that some MPs have received six months of each year served as opposed to the Ishmael Yamson�s four. The Minority Leader described as misleading, President Mills statement during his interaction with the media last week. During the session, he described the Chinery-Hesse report as non-existent when he noted that �I set up a committee to look at this whole issue headed by Mr. Yamson: they brought a report and the report recommended the way out of the situation. We accepted the report and we�ve acted in accordance with the recommendation of the Yamson committee report.� Continuing he added, �Where you have a situation where there is in essence no report at all, there is nothing that you can call a report on ex-gratia what do you do when there is a vacuum?� The Minority Leader who spoke to Joy FM on the resuscitated subject denied Mills� position, explaining that the last Parliament approved the Chinery-Hesse report.