[ 2017-01-28 ]

Chair of the Appointments Committee of Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu

GHS3k Bribery: I'll sue – Osei Owusu
The Chair of the Appointments Committee of
Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu, has warned that he
will resort to legal action and bring to book
whoever claimed that he served as a conduit in the
bribery allegation involving Energy
Minister-designate Boakye Agyarko and members of
the committee.

Class91.3FM’s parliamentary correspondent, Ekow
Annan, reported on Friday January 27 that Mr Osei
Owusu, who denied the allegations in an interview
with some parliamentary correspondents, said if
the Minority members could point out who delivered
the money and where the deed was carried out, he
would believe such a story. However, he continued,
as it stands now, the allegation is not true and
should be disregarded.

Earlier Bawku Central MP Mahama Ayariga confirmed
that a quantum of money was given to Mr Osei Owusu
by Mr Agyarko to be distributed to Minority MPs on
the committee with the intention of influencing
them to give him the nod so he could be sworn in
as Minister.

Mr Ayariga, who is a member of the Committee, told
Accra-based Radio Gold in an interview on Friday
that the Minority MPs outrightly rejected the
GHS3000 each, which was enveloped for them when
they later found out from Mr Osei Owusu that the
money was coming from Mr Agyarko.

According to Mr Ayariga, the Minority MPs first
accepted the money because they were under the
impression that the money was their sitting
allowance but got alarmed and decided to return
the money after they heard rumours that the money
was coming from Mr Agyarko to bribe them.

“We were expecting our committee allowances from
the chairman so when we were called by our leader
to come and take our money we took it knowing that
that is our allowance. So, as for the quantum, we
cannot tell how much money he might have given to
the chairman, so there are all sorts of
speculations about what sort of quantum he is
alleged to have given but what we know is what
came to us as individuals, that is what we can
bear testimony to: whether it’s GHS1 or GHS2, no
matter how small it is, what we know is what was
given to us and we found out later that it was
coming from him so as for the quantum, it’s not
important. For me, the most important thing is
that we were expecting to be given our committee
sitting allowances, and we were promised by our
chairman that it would come very soon, and we were
called to pick up money from our Whip, we picked
it up and assumed that it was our allowances and
then later we heard rumours in the house and we
called our leader and asked him where is the money
coming from, he said it came from the Chairman but
chairman said it was coming from Boakye Agyarko so
that is where we realised that we [couldn’t]
take money from Boakye Agyarko. So we asked him to
take his money back, we are not interested. The
quantum is insignificant, even if he had brought
GHS1million, we will still return it to him,” Mr
Ayariga said.

The committee has endorsed eight out of the 13
nominees of President Nana Akufo-Addo who have so
far been vetted. The committee is divided against
passing Senior Minister-designate Yaw Osafo Marfo
and Mr Agyarko.

Source - classfmonline.com

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