PROF ATTAFUAH SHREDS CHRAJ REPORT ON MAHAMA FORD GIFT

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday, October 01, 2016

A former Head of anti-Corruption at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Prof. Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah says the commission was not courageous enough to tell President John Mahama in the face that the vehicle he accepted from the contractor from Burkina Faso constituted clear case of conflict of interest.

“The whole gift policy is to avoid conflict of interest and it derives its existence from that law. How can you be guilty of the policy and not of the law,” Prof Attafuah who is also a Criminologist wondered, adding “unless CHRAJ is saying that the black letter of the law has not been diluted but the policy itself has been diluted. Even with that, there is contradiction.”

Final Report

The CHRAJ in its 78-page report released late Wednesday said “The Commission is satisfied that the gift in question forms part of gifts prohibited under the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct. Although the evidence shows that the Respondent (President Mahama) subsequently surrendered the gift to the State, the action nonetheless contravened the gift policy.”

President Mahama when he was Vice President in 2010 took delivery of a brand new 2010 Ford Expedition from Djibril Kanazoe whose company has since been awarded juicy government contracts including the construction of the controversial $650,000 Ghana Embassy fence wall in Burkina Faso apart from other multi-million dollar contracts since his encounter with the President.

The Burkinabe contractor sent the gift believed to be around $100,000 to his friend, Mr. Mahama, through the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou who passed it on to then Upper East Regional Minister Mark Woyongo and the explosive issue had been uncovered by journalist Manasseh Awuni Azure of Joy FM.

Three petitions had been filed separately by the National Youth League of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), a private citizen Nana Adofo Ofori as well as Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom’s Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and all cited President Mahama, the respondent but the CHRAJ dismissed the petitions outright saying the President did not breach the conflict of interest rules.

Contradictory Positions

Prof Attafuah was not enthused about the commission’s decision and insisted that “It is clear it is conflict of interest per CHRAJ’s own narration.”

He told Oman FM, Accra, yesterday that CHRAJ should have applied the maxim ‘thou shall not take gifts’ under the Gift Policy to point out to the President that he put himself in a conflict of interest situation in accepting the gift from Mr. Kanazoe.

He said the President’s acceptance of the gift “sets bad example for all public officers,” emphasizing, “If the President is able to accept a gift and he later decides what to do with that gift because according to CHRAJ there was no ill motive behind the acceptance, then ordinary public officers could also do same and get away with it.”