Bribery scandal: I’m no conspirator – Ablakwa

Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has told the Ghartey Committee he will never conspire to bear false witness against a ministerial nominee.

His comment comes on the back of a bribery allegation leveled against the leadership of the Appointments Committee.

Bawku Central MP Mahama Ayariga has alleged that Mr Boakye Agyarko, the then-Minister of Energy-designate through the Chair of the committee, Mr Joe Osei-Owusu, attempted to bribe Minority members of the committee through Minority Chief Whip Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka to approve his nomination.

Mr Osei-Owusu had informed the committee when he appeared before them that Mr Ablakwa had told him the allegation was a joke to equalise the NPP’s claims that former president John Dramani Mahama was corrupt.

But Mr Ablakwa told the five-member ad hoc committee investigating the allegation on Monday February 20 that the evidence given by Mr Osei-Owusu that he [Okudzeto] had said the allegation was a joke, was untrue.

“I will never go into a conspiracy to, as it were, bear false witness against a ministerial nominee just because we want to spread corruption around because that nominee had alleged that our president or somebody is corrupt. I will not be part of any such conspiracy, and, so, when the honourable Joe Osie-Owusu, the chairman of the committee, made these statement before you, I thought that I should seek the opportunity to come before you to also be heard and to state unequivocally that that cannot be true,” he stated.