Ford gift saga: Minority likely to set motion for further probe

Minority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has questioned whether the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice(CHRAJ) exhausted all the process leading to the report it released Thursday, 29 September 2016 on Mahama’s Ford Expedition gift received from the Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Freres Kanazoe.

Mr. Mensah-Bonsu said the report of CHRAJ is unsubstantiated by the fact that it indeed requested and received the documents or records relevant to the investigation.

He argued: “the conclusions of CHRAJ don’t even support the findings from the restricted investigations it conducted.”

He told host Fiifi Banson on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 FM that the minority in parliament will meet over the report and peruse it for a clear action on the matter.

For him, the President’s motive in the infamous Ford gift could be perceived as a conflict of interest situation insisting that President Mahama was clearly in breach of Section 144 of the code of ethics which he [Mahama] presented to his Ministers.

“President’s directive to his Ministers was that they should avoid cash and other similar donations from enterprises who have commercial interest. So he was bounded by the code of ethics to have refused the gift.”

He said: ” It was laughable to defend that the gift was not solicited by the President and so that doesn’t make it wrong”

CHRAJ’s report has cleared Mahama on the accusations of conflict of interest and corruption variously made against him by certain members of the public and the youth league of the CPP.

Even though CHRAJ in a 78-page report, indicted President Mahama, saying he violated the gift policy with regard to his decision to accept the vehicle, he was cleared of any bribery.

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.