President John Mahama and CHRAJ have been criticized for failing to live up to their responsibility of managing state affairs with utmost transparency.
A senior advisor to the president, Alhaji Baba Issifu Kamara, has been appointed the new National Security Advisor, even though he still has a 6-year old bribery scandal hanging on his neck.
Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Vitus Azeem says the appointment of Baba Kamara shows that the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has failed to bring closure to that scandal that rocked the government of the National Democratic Congress in 2009.
“One would have expected that something would have been done about it [since 2009]” but “the long silence means that CHRAJ is not interested in the case,” the anti-corruption campaigner told Joy News.
Baba Karama was alleged to have served as a conduit through whom some of the bribe money got to top government officials in the Rawlings government.
Former High Commissioner to Nigeria Baba Kamara, former Health Minister Dr. Sipa Yankey and former Roads Minster Ato Quarshie were alleged to have benefitted from £750,000 largesse from Mabey & Johnson, a British bridge construction firm that sought to win projects in the country.
Dr. Sipa Yankey had to resign from his position and Emile Short, the then Commissioner of CHRAJ began investigations which have been left hanging since his exit.
But two Commissioners have been at the helm of CHRAJ since 2009 and neither Anna Bossman nor her successor Lauretta Lamptey has been able to bring finality to the case.
No questions have been raised since Baba Kamara was appointed as Advisor to the President but his new role has brought him under greater public scrutiny.
Assessing his appointment, Vitus Azeem accused Mahama of failing to do “due diligence” before appointing the former High Commissioner to Nigeria. For him, the appointment was not “prudent.”
Nonetheless, the businessman and former diplomat cannot continue to suffer for CHRAJ’s lost sense of responsibility in checking corruption in government, Vitus Azeem concluded.
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Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline|Edwin Appiah|[email protected]
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