Institutionalizing of First Lady a hot topic

I find this to be most inappropriate! In a country that needs better schools, health care and basic living ammenities - this makes me very sad..

Institutionalizing of First Lady a hot topic

PARAMARIBO, Suriname–A decision last week by President Desi Bouterse to introduce a decree through which his wife Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring receives compensation for her tasks as First Lady, has kicked up quite some dust in Paramaribo.
Even an explanation by the President’s chief of Staff, Jurist Armand van der San, that the compensation was legal and just, didn’t suffice, especially when former President Ronald Venetiaan –revered as integer- resolutely said that his wife would not accept the retroactive payment of moneys that she is now owed by Government under the new decree. “Let’s be clear on that: she will not take the money,” Venetiaan told De West daily newspaper on Saturday.
Under the new resolution, Mrs. Bouterse will receive 8,742 Surinamese dollars SRD (almost US$ 4,000) per month, which is considered controversial and reeking of favouritism, as Bouterse’s wife is the first First Lady to receive such. Van der San explained though that the new decree actually brings structure into a situation that had never been formally arranged. “Former First Lady Mrs. Liesbeth Venetiaan-Vanenburg, a Civil Servant, resorted under the Cabinet of the President, but formally and budget wise her tasks were never set,” Van der San wrote in a press release issued Saturday. Apparantly, Mrs. Venetiaan continued to collect her Civil Servant salary, while working “free of charge” for the Cabinet of the President
“This financial, legal and administrative mistake had went on for ten years. That our decision to now right this chaotic wrong is kicking up so much dust in the community -and in particular the National Assembly- is regrettable,” Van der San said. “A lot of thought has gone into the decree; it is politically justifiable and definitely not unethical. It would have been unethical to only arrange this for the current First Lady,” he said.
He explained that during discussions about the budget of the Cabinet, it proved necessary to shed light on the First Lady’s expenses and institutionalize the position of “First Lady”. Under the new decree the First Lady is formally more than a ribbon cuttopr. She is officially tasked with executing social projects. ”It seems as if you cannot do right,” Van der San commented.
The Opposition Factions in Parliament roared last week when the decree became public. Mrs. Venetiaan-Vanenburg then stated in the press that she would not collect the retroactive payment of close to 100,000 Euros that she is now due for First Lady services during her husband’s ten year tenure.
While GFC News subsequently quoted “political analysts” who said she would have made a better political point if she had donated the payment to needy social institutions, her husband –Former President Venetiaan- publicly backed his wife. “Mi frow no e go teki a moni. A frow no wani a moni,” he said in Surinamese (the woman will not take the money; the woman does not want the money.”