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The Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) has petitioned Parliament over what it describes as President Mills� usurpation of powers of the legislature by varying the Chinery-Hesse committee report on former state officials� gratuity. The group accused the President of disbursing ex gratia payments to MPs and former Ministers while the emoluments of former President J.A. Kufuor and his vice were being handled haphazardly, in contravention of the 1992 Constitution. Arnold Boateng spokesperson for the group in an interview with Citi FM said that, AFAG is of the view that the President, who is the head of the executive, had no mandate to set the Ishmael Yamson Committee to review the recommendations of the Chinery-Hesse Committee which had been approved by Parliament. President Mills formed another committee which recommended that the Chinery-Hesse Committee be withheld. According to Arnold Boateng the position of the group is for parliament to restate their position per the constitution of Ghana. �Our position is to ask parliament to restate their position per our constitution that the president can not vary or set aside what he has done but unfortunately the Ishmael Yamson report varies what parliament had done and our position is that if actually that has happened then parliament would have to restate their position to the president and to the nation because the separation of powers was not put in the constitution for nothing. It was there for checks and balances purposes� AFAG said the President has violated the principle of separation of powers by his action and therefore want the legislature to address the matter appropriately. �If the executive will usurp the powers of parliament and parliament will not even cough then it means that the powers of the executive will be too much that it will create an imbalance within the centers of powers that our constitution seeks to establish�. The group added that it also constitutes a flagrant disregard of the constitution, and seriously amounts to president Mills arrogating to himself and for that matter the executive, powers which the sovereign people of Ghana have not ceded to them.