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Had they successfully acted as
one, like the Americans, they could all
designated as "Founders.".
could
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Are
We In The Era Of “Honourable" Knaves?
Cameron Duodo
April 03, 2017
It gives me no
pleasure to have to quote the Scottish philosopher, David Hume,
knowing, as I do, that Hume was a racist and did not scruple to
slander non-white people when he discussed civilization.
I don’t have the space to go into the reasons for that
statement, but I do want to draw attention to something Hume
said, that is relevant to the position adopted by our Parliament
on the “Ayariga” bribery allegation issue.
(It will be
recalled that the Honourable Mahama Ayariga, MP for Bawku
Central, alleged on 27 January 2017 that a minister-designate
had “bribed” some members of the Appointments Committee of
Parliament, with a view to influencing them to approve his
nomination).
Now, the allegation was hard to credit, for
the nominated minister's party has an overwhelming majority in
Parliament, with the result that it was difficult to understand
why a nominee proposed for ministerial appointment by that
party’s leader, should need to bribe any of his parliamentary
colleagues in order to obtain their approval. And as foir
bribing Opposition members, the Minister-designate would have to
be out of his mind to do that, for "discretion" is not the NDC's
best-known quality.
It looked to me to be a particularly
nasty example of a well-known political technique known in
Nigeria as rofu-rofu; in this case, calculated to smear the
whole of Parliament, so that the electorate that had returned
the MPs, would become disillusioned with all of them. Was this
part of an NDC agenda that stipulated that “if we’ can’t have it
[the right to exercise power] then they too should not be
allowed to exercise it?
That would be a most dangerous
cause for the NDC to puruse, because an important element of
democracy is that the majority should be allowed to rule, and if
that precept was being undermined at such an early stage in the
life of our current Parliament, then that body, as an
institution, needed to view the development with the utmost
seriousness.
So, when the Speaker, Prof Mike Oquaye, set
up an ad hoc committee to look into the matter, it was thought
that that was the appropriate method to settle the matter. The
selection of a former Attorney-General, Mr Joe Ghartey, to head
the committee, also provided evidence that the committee would
follow the rules in going about its task.
But when the
committee reported on 30 March 2017, it set in motion a series
of events that recalled David Hume’s warnings about “knavery” in
Parliament. For although the committee found that the Member of
Parliament, the “Honourable” Mr Mahama Ayariga, who made the
allegation of bribery against the ministerial nominee had
falsely accused the minister-designate of bribery and was
therefore guilty of contempt of Parliament, the committee only
recommended that he should be reprimanded and ordered to render
an apology to Parliament!
But even this relatively mild
recommendation that Mr Ayariga should render an apology,
appeared to be not quite acceptable to him. For when he was
asked by the Speaker to apologise, he said, “If you say I should
apologise, then I apologise.” This caused an uproar in the
House, for it is, of course, a well-worn hypocritical ruse
employed to pretend that an MP had apologised, when, in fact, he
hadn’t done anything of the sort. That unparliamentary tactics
were afoot was demonstrated by a noisy confrontation later in
the House that reminded one of occurrences on the floors of the
parliaments of countries like Turkey, Pakistan and Jammu and
Kashmir!
Here are some of the other findings of the
committee:
The First Deputy Speaker (Mr Joe Osei Owusu) had
denied ever having had any dealings over money with the
Minister-designate, Mr Boakye Agyarko;
The Minister-designate
had also said he had never given any money to be distributed as
was alleged;
A Member of the Minority group, Mr Mubarak
Muntaka, who was alleged by Ayariga to have got some of the
money, had also told the committee that he had never received,
or given money, in the manner that was alleged;
The committee
was of the view that a CCTV camera footage that was presented to
it in evidence would, if made public, compromise the security of
Parliament;
The committee was unanimous in finding that there
was no evidence that Mr Boakye Agyarko gave money to Joe Osei
Owusu to bribe MPs;
In summary, (the committee concluded), Mr
Ayariga had failed to provide evidence to support his
allegation.
But Ayariga complained to the House that he
had not been able to cross-examine those who gave evidence to
the committee. That may be a valid complaint and it is
surprising that an experienced lawyer like Mr Joe Ghartey should
have laid the committee open to such a charge.
However,
that is small beer compared to the committee’s failure to take a
global view of the allegation of bribery against a fellow MP; a
view which, if adopted, would have made it recommend a harsher
punishment than a reprimand and an apology.
A harsher
sentence was necessary because almost everyone in the country at
the moment is appalled by reports of corruption by our
officials.
For only a few days before the report on Ayariga’s
allegation, another official committee (though not a
parliamentary one) had reported that there were irregularities
in the “Ameri” contract to establish a power-generating plant
for Ghana and that “Ameri” should be brought back to the table
to renegotiate aspects of the contract. How many other contracts
have suspicious aspects that need to be rectified to save public
money from being filched?
Not only that – there has been
a great deal of unsavoury publicity about alleged attempts by
members of the former administration to steal cars belonging to
the state. In such an atmosphere, where the political landscape
is overhung with the “scent” of corruption, it is important that
every opportunity be taken to dispel suspicions that corruption
might have taken place in Parlaiment, when it has not.
The rationale for that is this: some regimes in this country
have been brought to an untimely end by rumours of corruption.
So, unfounded allegations of corruption can be almost as harmful
to the entire body politic as actual corruption itself. In my
opinion, the Joe Ghartey Committee did not devote enough thought
to this aspect of the matter. So it has presented a report which
seems to punish a very “knavish” MP by only slapping him on the
wrist.
– www.cameronduodu.com
By Cameron Duodu
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