The Progressive People’s Party has officially petitioned the Commission on Human Right and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to institute formal investigation a car gift to President John Mahama.
It becomes the third petition sent to CHRAJ against President Mahama, who has come under criticism for allegedly receiving a Ford Expedition as a gift from a Burkinabe Contractor who won government contracts.
Some Ghanaians have argued the President has placed himself in a conflict of interest situation while others consider it as bribery but some people say he has not breached any law particularly so when the President has put the car at the disposal of the state.
But Chairman of the PPP, Dr.Nii Allotey Brew Hammond told host of 3FM’s Late Edition, Alfred Ocansey, is seeking clarification on issues surrounding the Ford Expedition car given to President by a Burkinabe contractor.
“Our petition to CHRAJ is to seek clarification from the institution that has been mandated to investigate such matters. No one accepts a gift of that magnitude and when it is described as a bribe will admit that it is a bribe.
“So, we don’t expect him [President Mahama] to come out immediately to admit that he has accepted a bribe. The code of ethics require him to have rejected the gift,” he said.
Dr. Hammond said the Bank of Ghana must be penalized for failing to first investigate the building of the Ghana embassy in Burkina Faso wall saga.
Ghana spent a whopping $650,000 on the construction of a fence wall around a land belonging to the Ghana’s Embassy in Burkina Faso. The contract was executed by the contracted who later presented the Ford car to President Mahama as gift in 2012.
The amount spent in the construction of the wall was captured in one of the Auditor General’s Report which became a subject matter of the Public Accounts Committee hearing at which the Bank of Ghana accepted to investigate the matter.
“The Bank of Ghana accepted to investigate yet it failed to carry out its investigations. This in itself is a deception. They [Bank of Ghana] had the intention of deceiving the members of Parliament when they accepted to investigate the matter.”
Solomon Mensah|3news|Ghana