Bribery Committee didn't pursue justice; only wanted closure - Adu Asare

“What they wanted was to bring a closure to the matter and not to find or to pursue justice. That’s how the whole thing sounds. It’s like this issue is in the system and people want to know how it will end, so let’s put something together and navigate it to that point where there will be a closure without recourse to the facts on the ground," that is the assessment of former Presidential Staffer, Kojo Adu Asare on the Joe Ghartey Committee's Report regarding the alleged bribery case against Parliament's Appointments Committee.

Clearly dissatisfied with the committee's findings, Adu Asare believed the Committee's work was done in haste.

The Joe Ghartey Committee, an adhoc Committee which was set up by the Speaker of Parliament to probe the allegations, on Thursday, March 30, presented their report to the House.

In the report, the Committee established that the Bawku Central MP and a member of the Parliamentary Appointments Committee, Mahama Ayariga's allegations were unsubstantiated and unfounded.

He was therefore required to render an unqualified apology before Parliament yesterday, which he did seemingly unwillingly.

The Committee’s report, which was laid before Parliament yesterday [Wednesday] recommended that Mr. Ayariga be reprimanded by the Speaker of the House in accordance with Section 35 of the Parliament Act 1965 (Act 300).

The report recommended that Mr. Ayariga apologizes to the House to purge him of contempt.

Speaking to the issue on Peace FM's Kokrokoo, the former NDC MP for Adentan asserted that the Committee only wanted to bring closure to the case and not really find justice.

He explained that if the Committee was seeking justice, it would have invited other witnesses to the case to appear before it to give their accounts.

The witness he mentioned were Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Sampson Ahi and Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, all members of the august House.

To him, the fact that these people who testified to receiving bribes from the Energy Minister were not given an opportunity to voice their versions of the alleged bribery scandal punched holes in the Committee's report.

“Until you’ll give all those people an opportunity to speak or to bring their perspectives on the matter, it’s difficult to say that speaking to Ayariga alone establishes the truth or otherwise…They could have done a much better job and cleared doubts from people’s minds if they had allowed that thing to have gone on...

“But here we are, the job seems to have been concluded and we seem to be more confused with the outcome than anybody else or anything else.”

Hon. Adu Asare found their findings to be shoddily done.

“What they wanted was to bring a closure to the matter and not to find or to pursue justice. That’s how the whole thing sounds. It’s like this issue is in the system and people want to know how it will end, so let’s put something together and navigate it to that point where there will be a closure without recourse to the facts on the ground," he said.