UG sex-for-grades probe: Lawyer calls for chairperson of committee to step aside

A private legal practitioner in Ghana, Lawyer Martin Kpebu is advocating for the Chairperson of the University of Ghana’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee to step aside from investigating lecturers fingered in the Sex-for-grades documentary due to comments she passed earlier on the subject, ABC News can report.

Mr. Martin Kpebu contends that for the general public to consider the recommendations of the committee as fair, the Chairperson of the committee Dr. Margaret Amoakohene must recuse herself from all the probing processes.

Dr. Amoakohene reportedly said allegations of sex for grades according to the BBC documentary lacked basis per the available evidence.

She said in a Starr FM interview that, “Per the analysis on the video, there’s no direct correlation between lecturers’ conduct and the allegations made by the video. The evidence does not point to sex for grade. When we talk of sex for grade, we didn’t see much involvement of the lecturers of the University of Ghana”.

On the basis of this, Martin Kpebu is of the view that the chairperson of the University’s anti-sexual harassment committee ought to step aside in order to have a smooth probe.

Commenting on the issue on Newsfile on Saturday, the legal practitioner admitted said “this is the same professor who sat on the committee and they have dismissed other lecturers , about three lecturers. She has been on the Committee and she had done a good job,” Lawyer Kpebu admitted.

He continued that “personally I do not think that she necessarily has prejudiced the matter but because of her general statement that justice not only ought to the done but ought to be manifestly seen to be done, I think Dr Amoakohene should recuse herself.”

Professor Ransford Gyampo and Dr. Paul Kwame Butako, two lecturers of the University of Ghana have been interdicted by university authorities over their alleged acts in a BBC documentary on Sex-for-grades in some universities on the continent pending the outcome of a committee report on their said conducts. The lead journalist in the undercover investigation, Kiki Mordi sought to establish that the practice of lecturers demanding sexual favours from female students in exchange for grades are prevalent in West African universities.