Leading member of pressure group, Occupy Ghana, Sydney Casely-Hayford, has urged Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, to take legal action against Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong.
Mr Casely-Hayford holds the view that if the minister finds comments of corruption against her by Mr Agyapong as defamatory, her next line of action should be to seek redress in court.
“If Ursula believes that she’s been defamed by Ken Agyapong, she should sue him,” Mr Casely-Hayford said on Citi FM’s News Analysis Programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, September 2.
The Assin Central MP had made claims alleging that a contract to provide cards for the national identification cards was given to an entity who he said had paid some monies even though the company’s cost for the project was more expensive.
However, Mrs Owusu Ekuful, responding in a press statement on Friday, September 1, described the comments by Mr Agyapong as false.
She further challenged Mr Agyapong to go beyond verbal accusations and provide evidence to support allegations of corruption levelled against her.
“I categorically refute the allegations of corruption made against me in relation to the award of the contract for the production of national identification cards by Mr Kennedy Agyapong. They are patently false and I challenge him to come forward with evidence that corroborates his outlandish allegations,” the statement emphasised.
Mrs Owusu Ekuful stated that National Identification Authority (NIA) in not under her jurisdiction so the claims by Mr Agyapong cannot be true.
For her, the falsehoods are “born of ignorance” emphasising that “the NIA is not an agency under the Ministry of Communications; that is why the directive was signed by the Chief of Staff in the Office of the President”.
“In accordance with the law of the land, the NIA’s reporting line is directly to the Office of the President. Consequently, as the Minister of Communications did not and could not have awarded the contract for the NID, or indeed oversee the process, it would have been ultra vires,” the statement further indicated.
Source:Ghana/AccraFM.com
