Corrupt recruitment exercises: Speaker refers Minority Leader to Privileges Committee to substantiate allegation

The First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Bernard Ahiafor, has referred the Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, to the Committee on Privileges and Immunities to substantiate the allegation he made against the Ministry for the Interior that it had connived with a software recruitment agency to engage in corrupt recruitment exercises in the various security agencies.

Mr Ahiafor said the committee would have to listen to the allegation and give Mr Afenyo-Markin the opportunity to substantiate the allegation.

He said if there were witnesses to be invited to appear before the committee, it would be at liberty to do so.

Why referral?

The Speaker made the referral after the Minister for the Interior, Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, made reference to an allegation Mr Afenyo-Markin made during last Friday’s State of the Nation Address, in which he accused the ministry of engaging Tribal Net, a software company, in a corrupt recruitment process.

He, therefore, invoked Standing Orders 31 (e), (f) and (h) and prayed the Speaker to give the Minority Leader the opportunity to substantiate the allegations he had made.

Mr Mohammed-Mubarak also invoked Order 31 for the Minority Leader to be referred to the Privileges Committee “to have his day so that we meet there for him to provide his side”.

Standing Orders 31 (e), (f) and (h) say that any act or conduct constitutes contempt of Parliament or breach of parliamentary proceedings or any act or conduct calculated or intended to deceive Parliament or a committee of Parliament was contemptuous.

Time frame

Heeding the request of Mr Mohammed-Mubarak, the Speaker said, “This is an allegation, and all suspects are supposed to be deemed to be innocent.

“The committee will bring its report for a debate by the House,” he said, and urged the committee to work within the time frame and report appropriately to the House.

 Allegation entirely false

Mr Mohammed-Mubarak told the House that the claims by the Minority Leader suggesting that the ongoing recruitment into the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Prisons Service, the Ghana Immigration Service and the Ghana National Fire Service had been tainted by scam and irregularities were false.

Setting the record straight, the Interior Minister said those allegations were malicious and fabricated.

“They represent a calculated manoeuvre aimed at undermining a transparent, merit-driven process that the ministry had worked tirelessly to make fair, accountable and transparent,” Mr Mohammed-Mubarak said.

Mr Mohammed-Mubarak said previously, applying to multiple services meant writing separate examinations and paying for multiple medicals in addition to travelling to Accra for those medicals.

“With this online system, you will do an aptitude test and medicals once, and these will be done in regional capitals across the country, and applicants save money and time compared with previous exercises,” he said. 

I’d avail myself

Responding, Mr Afenyo-Markin said he did not know whether the Minister for the Interior still wanted to pursue the matter.

“Honourable Minister of Interior, I am not sure you want us to deal with this matter because you and I know what we know,” he said.

He said he preferred that the Speaker suspend sitting so that “we discuss this matter at conclave and that is all I would want to say”.

Mr Afenyo-Markin said the First Deputy Speaker was also the Chair of the Privileges Committee, and that under normal circumstances, the matter should rather be referred to Mr Ahiafor.

He, however, gave the assurance that should the Speaker refer the matter to a public hearing, he would avail himself.

Prove minister guilty

Contributing, the Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, said the attempt to scandalise the government would never work.

“So Speaker, we want an open public enquiry by the committee to establish if indeed a minister or a senior NDC person has any interest in the company that is providing the service.

“We want to know that minister so that we can take action against that minister because this President has promised to remove any minister who is involved in a scandal,” he said.