Bernard Mornah
Today marks exactly three years when the National Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Bernard Mornah stated that Members of Parliament receive bribes anytime a bill is passed in parliament.
“No bill is passed in parliament without money going through the hands of parliamentarians,” he said.
He made the statement in reaction to a report from an ad-hoc committee chaired by Hon. Joe Ghartey which was set up to investigate a bribery allegation in parliament. According to the report, former Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga was found guilty of contempt of parliament.
Mr. Mornah added that ‘it is no secret’ Members of Parliament take bribe so it is not surprising that Mahama Ayariga was found guilty of the crime.
“It is no secret that the dealings of parliament are now in the public domain. Bills cannot be passed without something going in … it was my hope that the minority in parliament will want to protect their own because almost all of them knew that the bribery story was true. If you ask them individually, they will tell you that it happened…the way they’ve handled this issue, everybody predicted the outcome and they did not deviate from it. So kudos to parliament for what they have done which society knows that it is wrong,” he said.
Read the original story published by peacefmonline on April 2, 2017
The National Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Bernard Mornah has likened members of Parliament to auctioneers because according to him, no bill is passed in parliament ‘without money going through the hands of parliamentarians’.
Mr Mornah made this comment while reacting to the report from the Joe Ghartey committee.
An ad-hoc committee chaired by Hon. Joe Ghartey set up by parliament to investigate the bribery allegation found the Bawku Central Member of Parliament, Mahama Ayariga guilty of contempt of parliament and recommended that he should be sanctioned in accordance with Section 35 of the Parliament Act, 1965 (Act 300).
Contributing to a panel discussion on Radio Gold's, Alhaji and Alhaji, the PNC chairman was not satisfied with the work done by the committee.
He does not understand why the committee found Mahama Ayariga guilty of contempt when Parliament had given them a different mandate.
Mr. Mornah additionally stated that ‘it is no secret’ Members of Parliament take bribe.
According to him, Members of Parliament are confessing individually to friends that the bribery story is true but are not bold to publicly declare it.
“…It is no secret that the dealings of parliament are now in the public domain. Bills cannot be passed without something going in…it was my hope that the minority in parliament will want to protect their own because almost all of them knew that the bribery story was true. If you ask them individually, they will tell you that it happened…the way they’ve handled this issue, everybody predicted the outcome and they did not deviate from it. So kudos to parliament for what they have done which society knows that it is wrong”.
He added: “I said this was going to be a charade…there are many things that happen in parliament that beats the imagination of the ordinary person. It’s difficult for a bill to be passed in parliament without some monies going through members of parliament and that these things are done almost all the time.
It means the kind of leadership that we have in parliament is suspect. The leadership that we have in parliament in some instances can be described then as auctioneers because it appears all these things pass through leadership…and when one decides that no; this is not true, you must be sacrificed for the rest of parliament and I think this is what is happening.”
