CHRAJ Ford report 'indicts' Mahama – CPP

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice’s (CHRAJ) report dismissing bribery allegations against President John Mahama in line with his acceptance of a Ford Expedition gift from a Burkinabe contractor actually “indicts” him, a member of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Ernesto Yeboah, has said.

The Youth League of the CPP had petitioned CHRAJ to look into Mr Mahama’s conduct when the issue came to light following investigations by journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni.

In a 78-page report, CHRAJ said its investigations showed that Mr Mahama was not bribed with the SUV. It also said Mr Mahama’s acceptance of the gift did not amount to conflict of interest. CHRAJ, however, said Mr Mahama violated the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct.

Mr Djibril Kanazoe received some contracts from the Government of Ghana purportedly as a result of the car gift.

Reacting to CHRAJ’s findings on Accra News on Thursday September 29, Mr Yeboah said the CPP Youth League had yet to receive its copy of the report from the Commission. “Our preliminary comment is that the president has been indicted. CHRAJ did not say the President was not at fault. The offence he has committed is the violation of the gift policy,” Mr Yeboah told Abena Korantemaa Agyapong.

According to him, the Gift Policy was formulated to check corruption and bribery, thus the President, by violating it, has actually been involved in corruption and conflict of interest. “The CHRAJ report does not clear the president of any wrongdoing. It indeed indicts him and for us as youth, the question we want to ask is: ‘Are we going ahead to vote for somebody who has abused his office, such as President Mahama?’ The answer is certainly no,” he stated, further commenting that CHRAJ tried hard not to fault the President.

“It looks like CHRAJ wants to have its cake and eat it. You can’t have it both ways. Once you admit there is a violation, then conflict of interest necessarily applies, then corruption necessarily applies.”

“Once you have broken the law, you have broken it. He’s abused his office and he is not worthy of the mandate of the people of the Ghana. It’s as simple as that,” Mr Yeboah said of President Mahama.