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CSPOG accuses Addison committee of conflict of interest
A statement signed by the Chairman of the CSPOG, Steve Manteaw, said it has become "the norm, rather than the exception in Ghana for state official and entities to place themselves in positions of conflicting interests."
It was revealed last week by the former power minister under the Mahama administration, Kwabena Donkor, that AMERI bought flight tickets, paid hotel bills, and gave per diem and shopping money to members of the Addison committee when the committee went to Dubai to investigate the company.
The statement added: "In 2015 before the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) was signed between state-owned distributor, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Karpowership Ghana Company Limited, members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines And Energy, who were responsible for ensuring due diligence before the contract was signed by the government, and who was saddled with responsibility for ratifying the transaction were sponsored on a trip to Turkey by the very company (Karpowership) that the agreement was to be signed with.
"Karpowership paid their airfares, hotel expenses and per diems."
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The Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas said there have also been several cases of government officials who are supposed to have oversight responsibilities over companies and institutions being sponsored by these same companies on trips abroad, serving on boards of these companies or involved with the company for personal gains.
It described the trend as worrying, saying it "constitutes a huge impediment to the fight against corruption."
The Minority in Parliament has said it will petition the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to probe the Addison Committee for accepting a sponsorship package from AMERI.
The Minority spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, said the Addison Committee failed to disclose the benefits they got from AMERI, a company it was investigating for wrongdoing in a power agreement it signed with Ghana in 2015.
“Clearly, they failed to disclose the matter, and what is the intent behind the failure to disclose the matter? In terms of materiality, the amount given to them and flying them first class is enough justification to make it material. Putting them in a first class hotel is worse, and the fact that they accepted per diem and shopping money from the contractor,” he said.
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“What makes the matter worse is that I am hearing that since they came back, they made a phone call to ECG telling ECG to pay every unpaid invoice of AMERI.”
But the CSPOG said any investigation by CHRAJ must lead to the prescription and adoption of guidelines by which public office holders, institutions, and investigative committees would be held to.
"As part of remedial measures, the state must be required at all times, to make funding available to sponsor activities of committees set up to investigate cases of corruption, as in the case of AMERI, to prevent creating avenues for possible bribery which leads to loss of credibility of the committees’ reports," it said.
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