CHRAJ grills Woyongo, others over Mahama’s Ford gift

Mark Owen Woyongo

High ranking government officials including former Interior Minister, Mark Woyongo, have been interrogated by the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), on the controversial Mahama Ford gift saga.

The officials were made to answer questions on Mahama‘s decision to allegedly accept the gift from a Burkinabe contractor , Djibril Kanazoe when he was Vice President in 2012.

Sources within the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), confirmed this to Citi News.

The team of investigators from the Commission are also expected to present their report on the saga by the end of this August, 2016.

The Youth League of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and a private citizen, petitioned CHRAJ with claims of conflict of interest against the President and called for an investigation into his receipt of the gift.

The presidency subsequently submitted volumes of documents to the Commission, in which he rejected accusations of bribery and corruption leveled against him.
CHRAJ is in custody of the vehicle’s log book and other relevant documents to guide it to bring closure to the matter.

Background

President Mahama came under intense public criticism for accepting the Ford gift worth about US$100,000 from the contractor, allegedly to influence him.
The Burkinabe admitted giving President Mahama a Ford Expedition vehicle, for which the President called to thank him.

The gift, according to reports, was prior to an attempt by the contractor, to win a bid to execute the Dodo Pepeso-Nkwanta road construction project.

The same contractor had also been contracted to build a wall, at a cost of over half a million dollars, for the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou.

Mahama’s letter to CHRAJ

President Mahama, in a letter signed by his lawyer, Tony Lithur, asked CHRAJ to dismiss the allegations of conflict of interest.

In the letter addressed to the acting Chairperson of CHRAJ, President Mahama held that he was innocent of all the allegations leveled against him.

Source: citifmonline.com