The Minority in Parliament has described as “shameful” the report by the Bureau of National Investigations and National Security on the controversial sale of contaminated fuel.
The report sought to exonerate the Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST), Alfred Obeng Boateng, of any wrongdoing in the sale of five million litres of contaminated fuel which BOST sold to Movenpiina Company Limited, a company which was not registered at the time of transaction.
Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, in a press conference on Wednesday July 5, stated that the Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko, whose Ministry has supervisory role over these issues, promised setting up an eight-member investigative committee to look into the scandal.
“However, in a most bizarre and shameful twist, this same Energy Minister addressed a press conference yesterday July 4, 2017 claiming that even before his own committee would get to work, the BNI and National Security have exonerated the BOST Managing Director, Mr Alfred Obeng Boateng, and absolved him of all wrongdoing. July 4, 2017 will certainly go down in history as Ghana’s day of shame!” he said.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South said this “naked cover-up is an insult to Ghanaians and an affront to the laws of Ghana”.
For the Minority, “the signs are now crystal clear that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has no commitment to fighting corruption”.
The NDC MPs emphasised that “what we have been treated to in this embarrassing spectacle is a new government that has arrived to dash the hopes of many Ghanaians by entrenching the canker of corruption”.
Mr Haruna underscored that the minority will not obstruct justice and “if there has been any wrongdoing by any Ghanaian, let that person be taken through due process”.
“Following revelations by a Member of Parliament on the Majority side alleging that the beleaguered BOST MD was a major financier of the presidential campaign of Nana Akufo-Addo and that Mr Obeng Boateng is untouchable – it is now obvious to many a Ghanaian that under the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government there will be different strokes for different folks. NPP financiers who loot state coffers and engage in unbridled corruption will be let off the hook under his watch. In any case, this distasteful episode affords us an exclusive insight into how people came by their appointments under the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government. These are very troubling times for our motherland.
We stand by our original demands on this matter and call on all Ghanaians to stand up to this government and demand transparent and accountable governance.”