CID Picks Ex-Ministers

The £750,000 Mabey & Johnson bribery saga has been given a fresh whiff of life and urgency as persons mentioned in the alleged graft took turns to write statements and answer relevant questions at the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) headquarters following a long lull.

Even before Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface and Alhaji Amadu Seidu honoured the invitation of the Police Headquarters last Tuesday, other persons in the alleged disgraceful bribe scandal had taken their turns.

Some of the other suspects in the bribery case are Kwame Peprah, Board Chairman of SSNIT, Dr George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, former Minister of Health, Alhaji Baba Kamara, Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr Ato Quarshie, former Roads and Highways Minister and Brigadier General George Lord Attivor, Managing Director of Intercity STC.

The resurrection of the case follows an application to the Supreme Court by lawyers of the suspects to rule on whether the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) or a court of law should adjudicate in the alleged graft.

The former Salaga MP, when DAILY GUIDE reached out to him, confirmed that he was a guest of the police last Tuesday afternoon, describing the reception as cordial and good.

He said information reached him about the invitation by the police when he was in Salaga in the Northern Region, following which he rushed down to meet the security agents.

“The police were civil in their reception during the two-hour period that I was with them. I reached the place at about 4pm and by 6pm, they were through with me. They were nice to me and when I was done with writing the statement, I took leave of them,” he said.

Continuing, he said, “Before Alhaji Amadu Seidu and I took our turns at the Police headquarters, the other persons mentioned in the case had also gone to write their statements, I had gathered.

The procedure at the Police headquarters is to pave the way for the case to be transferred to the court of law following the ruling of the Supreme Court that a court of law and not CHRAJ should hear the case.”

Counsel for the suspects objected to the handling of the case by CHRAJ and therefore sought the Supreme Court’s interpretation, a development which saw CHRAJ dropped for a court of law.

The invitation to the persons allegedly linked to the graft by the police is a required procedure for the commencement of the case in a court of law as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

It is a case mired in legal wrangling from the date that it was foisted on the public domain, even before it was exhausted legally, costing ministers their jobs and tarnishing the political image of others.

It would be recalled that some former government officials and current ones were mentioned in a bribery scandal in which a British engineering firm, Mabey & Johnson, offered bribe to secure contracts from government.

The local scandal was part of a worldwide graft which found space in many publications and was even a subject of a court hearing in the United Kingdom, the outcome of which was the slapping of fine on the firm.

The names of a number of Ghanaian officials came up during the Southwark Court hearing. Two of those mentioned, George Sipa Yankey and Amadu Seidu, were serving ministers at the time.

The receipt of Ghana’s share of the fine, to which she was entitled, became a matter of political wrangling, with some questioning why government should not collect it.

The subject created depressive moments for the government as its PR machinery went overdrive to repulse the fallouts.

The six current and former government appointees roped in the case include one-time Finance Minister Kwame Peprah, Alhaji Baba Kamara, Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, former Minister of state at the Office of the President, Alhaji Amadu Seidu, Dr Ato Quarshie, a former Minister of Roads and Highways, former Water Resources, Works and Housing Minister Alhaji Saddique Boniface, former Minister of Health Dr. George Adja-Sipa Yankey, and Edward Lord Attivor.

Justice Emile Short, the Commissioner of CHRAJ at the time that the matter went to the agency, had his fair share of bashing over the jinxed subject, for allegedly making prejudicial remarks.

Lawyers for the six persons had their day when a Human Rights court ruled that having made those remarks, Mr. Emile Short could not handle the case. It cost Dr. Sipa-Yankey and Amadu Seidu their jobs even before the matter was disposed of in court.

Danny Ofori Atta, the local front-man for the British bridge construction firm but now deceased, was said to have influenced immensely the award of the contracts.

The bribe money was said to have stealthily passed through an ad hoc Ghana Development Fund (GDF).

A publication about the bridge construction firm was said to have spilled the beans about the dirty deals involving the public officials dating back to the 80s and 90s.

With the matter set to make a court appearance, the media would have more than they can chew in terms of coverage, in a case whose political undertones would be relished by opposition parties.

By A.R. Gomda