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Parliament threatens to jail ex-speaker?
Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot
Accra, May 14, Ghanadot - The ad hoc Parliament committee chaired by the Minority Leader
of Ghana’s Parliament, Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu revealed that
the former Speaker, Mr. Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi Hughes took away
items illegally
from the Speaker’s bungalow upon his retirement from office last
year.
The committee was constituted to investigate
allegations that the former speaker bolted away with household
appliances valued at four point five million cedis from the
bungalow at Cantonments, suburb of Ghana’s capital town, Accra.
Members of the NDC
has called on President
of Ghana, Professor John Evans Atta Mills to order the immediate
arrest of former speaker of Parliament Ebenezer Begyina Sakyi-Hughes
“for looting state property from his official residence upon
leaving office.”
In a statement signed by the NDC General Secretary Johnson
Asiedu-Nketiah, and addressed to the Office of the President,
the NDC said its call is hinged on “the party’s anti-corruption
agenda” as enshrined in its 2008 manifesto.
“An NDC government will not make any excuses for corrupt
ministers, officials and office holders generally. We shall
promptly investigate allegations of corruption and allow the law
to take its course,” it said.
The release said the Mills’ government in its bid to “make
corruption a high risk activity,” must drag the former speaker
to court to face the full rigours of the law.
”The party strongly disagrees with any suggestion that the
former speaker be allowed to go scot-free after returning some
of the items and paying for others since this will amount to
setting a bad precedence in our anti-corruption crusade.
”As a social democratic party, we maintain that all citizens of
Ghana must be treated equally before the law. Stealing is
stealing whether the item involved is a cock, cassava or state
furniture,” the statement said.
Meanwhile a former presidential candidate of the Convention
People’s Party (CPP), Mr George Aggudey has described
as
“unstatesmanly” the action of Mr Sakyi-Hughes.
The items Mr. Sekyi=Huges is
alleged to have removed included
furniture, curtains, paintings, generators, carpets, gymnasium
and kitchen equipment, rugs from Morocco, electrical appliances,
among others.
The committee, on the advice of the Prestige Wing
of the Public Works Department (PWD) has established, however,
that the former speaker’s issue be regarded as a “one-off event”
as efforts are made to put in place a well defined policy
for the disposal of soft furnishings.
A number of Ghanaians who spoke to the Ghanadot
described the action of the former speaker as criminal and
should face the fullest rigours of the law.
Mr. Sekyi Hughes is already paying one
million cedis for some of the items and gets
to keep the rest, which is
valued at thirty-eight thousand eight hundred cedis, at no cost
to him.
Ghanadot
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