Ford gift: CHRAJ report is 'patented contrivance' – Minority

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice’s clearance of President John Mahama of bribery allegations in the Ford vehicle gift saga is nothing, but a charade, the Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has said.

Speaking on Starr Today Thursday, he said the report is bereft of substance and the minority will interrogate the processes leading to the conclusions espoused by CHRAJ.

Mr. Mensah-Bonsu who sounded livid by the report added “it is a patented contrivance” and that it exonerates what parliament was called on to do before the speaker of Parliament, Hon. Doe Adjaho, shot that motion down.

He said “certainly parliament was not going to engage in such a fruitless adventure.” He said CHRAJ’s reliance on Article 218 (A&E) of the Constitution to back its stance was an obvious attempt to side step the issue.

He therefore stated that the right articles the commission should have relied on were A,B and D alas it was not done.

Mr. Mensah-Bonsu said he will push for the institution of an interrogation mechanism to ascertain whether CHRAJ exhausted all the process leading to the report it released Thursday, 29 September 2016.

The youth wing of the Convention People’s Party, the Progressive People’s Party and a citizen petitioned against Mahama at CHRAJ when it came to light in a media report that he received a vehicle gift from a Burkinabe contractor, Mr Djibril Freres Kanazoe, who was subsequently given government contracts.

But, in a 78-page report, CHRAJ, cleared the president of bribery, indicting him for violating the gift policy with regard to his decision to accept the vehicle.

According to CHRAJ, it was satisfied that the gift in question formed part of gifts prohibited under the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct and that although the evidence show that President Mahama subsequently surrendered the gift to the State, the action nonetheless contravened the gift policy, the state-owned Daily Graphic reported on its website.

CHRAJ said it has evidence showing Mahama submitted the Ford Expedition gift from the Burkinabe contractor to the State. The Commission also established the President was not culpable of conflict of interest, bribery or fraud in relation to the manner in which the vehicle was given to him.