Ayariga to challenge Special Prosecutor

Member of Parliament for Bawku Central Constituency Mahama Ayariga has served notice he will challenge a court order secured by the Special Prosecutor to have his phone recordings made available to the graft-investigating office.

The lawmaker stated that he would have “gladly personally” handed his MTN call records to Martin Amidu if he had asked him directly.

An Accra Circuit Court had granted Mr Amidu’s office permission to go to the Managing Director of MTN for the phone records between Mr Ayariga and one Kwasi Asante-Gyimah of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

According to the plea of the Special Prosecutor, the MP had imported three Toyota Land Cruiser V8s in apparent infraction of corruption-related laws.

“After undertaking preliminary investigations into the suspected commission of corruption and corruption-related offences including the abuse of public office for private gain by the Honourable Mahama Ayariga, the Member of Parliament for Bawku Central Constituency, my office decided that there were sufficient grounds to invite the suspect for the conduct of full investigations into the allegations,” the Special Prosecutor had stated.

But in a statement on Thursday, January 24, the former Minister of Youth and Sports said he has instructed his lawyers to subject the court order to scrutiny.

“I however think that in the interest of developing clarity on the law protecting the privacy of the communication of Ghanaian citizens on mobile telecommunications platforms, and setting proper precedents, the breath of the court order should be subjected to legal scrutiny.”

He denies knowledge of the said Kwasi Asante-Gyimah, urging telecommunications giants MTN to tread cautiously over the order.

“I believe that MTN is properly advised not to hastily yield to this clearly over-broad order in the interest of their customers. MTN must be seen to exhaust all legal challenges.”