Minority Urges President Mills To Respond To Claims Of Bribery

The Minority in Parliament has urged the President, John Evans Atta Mills to respond to claims that there had been attempts to induce him with money for some consideration.

The Minority said if the assertion by Mr Kwame Pianim was factual, then the President needed to furnish Ghanaians with the identities of the persons involved in those cases of the attempted bribery.

According to the Minority in a press statement issued last Friday, if what Mr Pianim said was really true then clearly that was attempted bribery.

“The President needs to inform the good people of this country who would want to believe in his integrity what steps he is taking or has taken to have persons involved apprehended, or otherwise the people of this country have every right to draw their own conclusions.”

The statement was signed by the Minority Chief Whip, Mr Frederick Opare-Ansah. The statement said the Criminal Code Act 29, 1960 clearly criminalises both the giver and the taker of a bribe, including attempted bribery, adding that the Act also criminalised persons who witnessed such an act, but failed to report to the relevant body.

It said since the President and Mr Pianim had both failed to report the matter to the police, then they were both culpable.

The Minority contended in the statement that a serious analysis of the matter showed that the claims of incorruptibility on the part of the President, as inferred from the claims, were rather laughable and raised a lot of fundamental questions.

It said since Mr Pianim had been reported in the story as a ‘leading’ member of the NPP, the major opposition party to the ruling government, “wouldn’t it then be surprising that a President would elect to accept a bribe in the presence of such a person?”

The statement further questioned whether it would be wrong in concluding that the episode involving an attempt to bribe a President in the presence of a frontline political opponent was either a set-up or a farcical stage-managed event.

The statement further wondered what could have emboldened those person (s) to approach the President in order to offer him bribe in the presence of a known ‘leading’ member of the opposition group.

“Can the President’s failure to report the matter to the police be interpreted to mean that he is protecting wrongdoers in this country because they are his friends,” the Minority quizzed.