Although an independent body outside of parliament would have been ideal in investigating the bribery scandal involving the leadership of the Appointments Committee and Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko, Ghanaians should wait patiently for the five-member committee constituted by the Speaker of parliament to submit its final report, Vitus Azeem, former Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), has said.
Speaker Prof Mike Oquaye has directed that parliament set up a five-member ad hoc committee to investigate a bribery allegation levelled against the Appointments Committee.
The members of the committee, according to Prof Oquaye, will not necessarily be from parliament. It will be chaired by former Second Deputy Speaker Joe Ghartey. The other members are MPs Ben Abdallah, Ama Pomaah Boateng, Magnus Kofi Amoatey, and B.T. Baba.
But speaking in an interview with host Chief Jerry Forson on Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Wednesday February 1, Mr Azeem said: “Some of us have held and stated that it would be better that they got an independent body to investigate this matter, but for now parliament has decided we just have to wait and see what happens.
“I am not sceptical [about the findings] but the thing is that we are human beings and the temptation is to protect ourselves, so it has the potential of coming out with findings that may not be generally acceptable.
“I thought CHRAJ should have taken up the matter from the beginning. Once it was put in the public domain and reported in the newspapers, it was enough grounds for CHRAJ to have taken up the matter since it involves corruption. They did not need to wait for somebody to petition them before they do that but now that parliament has decided to do the investigation and also CHRAJ has said they are going to wait to see how the investigations go, we just have to wait patiently and see what happens.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
