CHRAJ rent saga: Commissioner hasn’t done any wrong – Freddie Blay

Former Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Freddie Blay, that the Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Lauretta Lamptey, did nothing wrong by spending $456.25 a day on her hotel accommodation pending the completion of renovation works on her official residence.

Lamptey started lodging at a hotel with her family in August this year following the expiration of her rent at the AU village – a plush area near the Cantonments.

Over $203,500 was used to pay her rent at the village, where she lodged for 37 months. She is currently paying the Cedi equivalent of $456.25 per day at her hotel.

Some Civil Society Organisations including IMANI Ghana and anti-graft body Ghana Integrity Initiative, as well as social commentators, have demanded investigations into the expenditure and also want Lamptey expelled or removal from office.

However, Blay, who is also the first Vice Chairman of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), said Ghanaians must cut Lamptey some slack.

“Honestly, I have not seen anything extremely wrong with what she’s done. She’s supposed to be housed. Some have said she should have been paid 20 percent of what she’s entitled to, in lieu of being housed if there’s no housing. The people were even putting up a house for her – the organisation was – maybe the money was not flowing so she was obliged to go and rent a hotel and it definitely accumulated a little more than what she may ordinarily, in terms of discretion, one could have done.

“But strictly speaking, if you look at her, it’s the appointing authority that may have made a mistake appointing some young woman, single parent, who’s been used to some kind of life… and you want her to go rent a $20 hotel or what?

“The hotels in this country averagely cost that much. Maybe if it has been a white man who’s been handed that position, one won’t complain…but because it’s a Ghanaian [we are complaining]. It’s the same thing we are talking about [with] football coaches and so forth,” Blay told STARR NEWS Monday.

He said: “If you bring in anybody, any expatriate, or any high level employee to handle such a position, this very very delicate position and so forth, you want her to be housed, she says: ‘No, I don’t want to take 20 percent but give me a place to stay’. She wants to rent a hotel, you won’t pay less than $300, $400 per day, she did that. Some say it’s indiscretion and that the economy of this country is broke, but there are people letting this country suffer more than that. People are hiring offices for $63,000 a month; people are hiring houses for huge sums of money and so forth. So that’s the problem we are encountering”.