Ford Expedition gift: OccupyGhana demands full-scale police investigation
A pressure group, OccupyGhana, has called for a full-scale police investigation into the alleged donation of a Ford Expedition vehicle to President John Mahama by a Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Kanazoe.
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According to a statement issued by the group, if the investigations established sufficient ground to initiate prosecution, the law ought to be allowed to take its course to the fullest extent possible.
It said OccupyGhana had been following the story of the alleged donation of the vehicle and that it had studied closely the reactions, rebuttals and explanations offered and given and concluded that there were a lot to be concerned about.
“These are matters that should not be treated lightly. It is not for nothing that ours is probably the only Constitution to mention "Corruption" by name and, in Article 35(8), impose a mandatory and imperative duty on the state to ‘take steps to eradicate corrupt practices’. Article 69 (1) (b) (i). which provides: ‘The President shall be removed from office if he is found, in accordance with the provisions of this article…to have conducted himself in a manner…which brings or is likely to bring the high office of President into disrepute, ridicule or contempt…’ gives us clear cause to be worried about any conduct in violation of same,” the statement said.
Constitutional breach
Making its case for investigations into the matter while congratulating Manasseh Azure Awuni on the effort he put into the project and the courage he took to publish the story, it said the facts strongly suggested possible breaches of the criminal laws on corruption, stating that those facts showed that a public official (the President) had received a gift.
It said that alone did not constitute a criminal offence, but if it was also established that there was an agreement or offer by which the conduct of the President, in respect of his duties as a public officer, would be or was influenced by a gift of a vehicle, then the offence of corruption would have been committed, both by him and Mr Kanazoe.
“As of now, we do not have sufficient grounds to state emphatically that the offence of corruption has been committed. But the known facts are disturbing,” the statement added.
The group said it was convinced that at the very least, a clear case of conflict of interest, and by it a breach of Article 284 of the Constitution, had been established, noting: “Article 284 expressly forbids public officers from putting themselves in a position where their personal interests either conflict or are ‘likely to conflict’ with the performance of their official functions.”
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It said while the group believed that there was no real ambiguity or uncertainty on the issue of conflict of interest, it nevertheless believed that it was important for all the facts to come out.
Absence of head
It regretted that the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) that was mandated to initiate investigations into the matter currently had no substantive head and, therefore, suffered from a vacuum of leadership of that could act effectively and decisively on the issue.
“The failure to appoint a substantive head of that institution is unpardonable. We, therefore, demand a multi-party investigation instituted by Parliament to enquire into this matter by putting to sleep the laughable claim that there have been no breaches of our laws because the vehicle was allegedly put in the President's pool of official cars.
“A wrong is not made right by the use to which the wrongly acquired asset is put. The Office of the President of this dear country is one of trust. Any and every occupant of it owes a fiduciary duty to the people of Ghana,” it said.