'We're not sleeping on graft claims' - Speaker of Parliament

Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Aaron Oquaye has charged the house to provide, within a week, a way to deal with bribery allegations against some committees of the House.

A former Chairman of parliament’s Finance Committee, James Klutse Avedzi, recently admitted that his committee received money from officials of the National Lottery Authority prior to deliberations on the amendment of the National Lottery Act, 2006 (Act 722)

Mr Avedzi is reported to have said that the NLA first presented 50,000 cedis to the committee "but when we looked at the provisions, we realised that the amount was not sufficient, so they promised to bring another 50,000 cedis".

However, on Friday, July 7, Prof Oquaye noted: “… I trust that in a week, we should have some directive, some common position on which we can act on the matter. No one is sleeping over it at all. All parliament issues must be seriously examined.”

Meanwhile, the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) have called for an immediate inquiry into the allegations.