Editorial- M&J: British SFO Must Not Be Fooled

The British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and its collaborators at Mabey & Johnson may have succeeded in jeopardising the hard-earned reputation and integrity of people like Dr. Adjah Sipa-Yankey by the Mabey & Johnson bribery allegation, but just momentarily.

The SFO must however not be fooled. The intelligence of the discerning people of Ghana cannot be so flagrantly insulted.

Mr. John Hardy QC was in Ghana delivering lectures on platforms created by Danquah Institute, an ideological institute of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). He also met with the Mr Emile Short, Commissioner of Ghana’s Commission for Human Rights & Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), before returning to his home country.

Considering that John Hardy was the man who presided over the vicious SFO prosecution statement that sought to impugn the integrity of the accused Ghanaian officials without any opportunity for them to defend themselves, The Catalyst wonders how sincere he could be to his audiences in Ghana on his so-called intellectual exercise.

Also, we have noticed that Mr. Hardy’s visit to Ghana took place in the wake of CHRAJ’s preparation to commence public hearings into the Mabey & Johnson Bribery allegation against the Ghanaian Officials today Monday 15th March 2010. We hasten to conclude therefore that Mr. Hardly had a motivation to be in Ghana at this very moment. His motivation, we daresay could not have been in the best interest of this country.

Why has the UK Chief Prosecutor chosen to come to Ghana to, more or less, fraternise with the opponents of the Mills-led NDC government after clearly seeking to embarrass the government via his charade of an SFO prosecution statement that did not only level a damning allegation of bribery against some officials of the government but the UK authorities deliberately made it impossible for the accused persons to defend themselves on British soil. The diabolical intention of Mr John Hardy and the rest of them was exposed by Owen Davis QC, a British lawyer of repute, in this quote from the SFO prosecution statement that “[Dr. Yankey and Kwame Peprah were subsequently convicted in Ghana of conspiring to wilfully cause losses to the state and served prison sentences. Those convictions cannot be related to any payments from Mabey & Johnson, but are perhaps symptomatic of the prevailing level of corruption in the Ghanaian government at the time and through which Mabey & Jonson, by engaging in similar corrupt practices, secured and maintained their contracts.”

Clearly, John Hardy and the others created the erroneous impression in their SFO prosecution statement that Dr. Sipa-Yankey and others were jailed under the NPP government for acts of corruption committed under the Rawlings-led NDC government. Is this the top UK layer we are being told about? As far as The Catalyst is concerned, John Hardy cannot be a reputable lawyer by any stretch of the imagination.

Back here in Ghana, the Mabey & Johnson bribery issue has a political twist and it is interesting to note that Mr. John Hardy QC was in the country giving public lectures on the platform of NPP’s Danquah Ideological Institute. What John Hardy and the British SFO must understand though, is that discerning Ghanaians are carefully reading their game and taking note of their antics. A point worth noting also is that if the former British High Commissioner to Ghana, Craig Murray’s assertion of the UK’s hypocrisy and international corruption is anything to go by, then the likes of John Hardy, giving his role and unacceptable conduct in the M&J bribery accusations against the Ghanaian officials, are the last of persons expected to lecture Ghanaians on corruption. John Hardy and the UK SFO must not be fooled. Discerning Ghanaians will not tolerate this neo-colonial attitude and will do everything to resist their oppression.