Lawyer protests open inquiry into M&J scandal

CHRAJ Boss Emile Short A legal practitioner, Nana Ato Dadzie, has raised issues over the decision of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to institute an open inquiry into the Mabey & Johnson (M&J) scandal. Nana Dadzie, who is also a solicitor and counsel for Dr Ato Quashie, one of the persons mentioned in the M&J case, in a letter to CHRAJ, was of the opinion that the Commission ought not to be stampeded into an open inquiry in the M&J case when the very documents which formed the basis of the said allegations raised against the officials were unavailable or inadequate, as the Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mr Justice Emile Short himself stated recently. According to Nana Dadzie, CHRAJ's insistence on the probe would amount to double standards when, in February 2010, Mr Short had made a public pronouncement that CHRAJ "is unable to proceed with the M&J allegation probe because it has not received all the documentation on the allegations it seeks to investigate". He further stated that after reviewing the certified copy of the Regina vrs Mabey and Johnson case decided by the Southwark Crown Court dated 25/9/09, Suit No T20097513 forwarded to the solicitors by CHRAJ, he and his colleagues who constituted the defence counsel could not but agree with CHRAJ that "the said document cannot form the basis without more of any credible allegations for which a competent constitutional, legal and juridical body like CHRAJ would want to subject our client to any form of public enquiry". "Like CHRAJ, our client does not have access to all the documents which form the basis for the said allegations. Our client is not expected to respond to the allegations the basis of which is uncertain and which he has no access to," he added. He further stated that "a cursory reading of the judgement of the Southwark Crown Court referred to various other documents, material and private arrangements which went on between Mabey and Johnson and the SFO (UK), matters which were neither brought before the court nor seen by their clients". Nana Dadzie further stated that "the SFO, at Paragraph 194 of the ‘Prosecution Opening Note’ to the Southwark Crown Court, stated with emphasis that the SFO decided not to mention the names of certain directors, executives and employees of M&J at this stage because they may face trial in English courts". He said the SFO further stated that "the fact of the naming of certain directors, executives, employees of M&J and any others should not be taken by this court, the public and press as determinative of guilt of any of the persons named in this opening note. In the interest of fairness to those who are under investigation, no settled view concerning the culpability of individuals; whether named here or not, has been made". "If investigations are yet to be concluded concerning a number of unnamed and unidentified individuals allegedly involved in the case, then who are the alleged accusers of our clients for which a public inquiry is being held here in Ghana," he asked. Nana Dadzie claimed that the officials were never charged nor called as witnesses, nor were they party in the Southwark Crown Court trial, yet the English judge appeared to have admitted as fact allegations assumed against the Ghanaian officials by persons (new directors of M&J) whom they had never seen, met nor dealt with and whose alleged admissions in court their clients never had the opportunity to challenge nor test. Strangely enough, he said, the former directors who were in office at all material times had not been charged, prosecuted or given evidence in any case in which their clients were mentioned. He also re-affirmed the officials’ earlier objection to CHRAJ's jurisdiction to investigate allegations of corruption against them, since they were not public officers while those still in public office were not being investigated for allegations of impropriety with respect to their current office. Nana Dadzie was of the firm belief that the judgement of the Southwark Court was of doubtful constitutional, legal and evidentiary value under Ghana's criminal jurisprudence and a gross violation of all known natural laws, more especially their client's right to a hearing before being condemned, as happened in the Southwark Crown Court Case. "I wish to state that my clients cannot be part of the projected public inquiry when they, like CHRAJ itself, have no access to documents and records in this case, in spite of various unsuccessful public and private overtures by CHRAJ to relevant public bodies and individuals in the UK and Ghana 'fishing' for some evidence," he said. He threatened that their clients might have no choice under the circumstance but apply for a restraining order against CHRAJ from competent legal authorities in the event that the appeal by their clients to the law arid the Constitution of Ghana was not acceded to by CHRAJ. For the avoidance of doubt, Nana Dadzie added that their clients re-affirmed their earlier denial that they ever received any bribe whatsoever from M&J or any other company or individual to influence any decision they took in their former public office. Meanwhile, the Patron of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), Dr Obed Yao Asamoah, commenting on the issue, has accused Mr John Hardy, an international prosecutor, who was in the country recently, of pre-judging the case. According to Dr Asamoah, Mr Hardy's conduct fell below the expectation of the legal profession. "Some persons are expected to appear before CHRAJ, Hardy was here to pronounce the affected persons guilty. That was not proper,” he said. Source: Daily Guide/Ghana

M&J saga: CHRAJ writes to 'accused'

Mr Short: the material obtained from the Attorney General was insufficient. The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) says it has delivered letters to some of the public officials implicated in the Mabey and Johnson bribery scandal, as a first step towards a full scale investigation into the matter. This, it said, was in accordance with regulations in the investigation of complaints contained in the Complaint Procedure Regulations, Constitutional Instrument No 7. CHRAJ, however, said it had encountered some difficulties in its attempt to serve the letters on Alhaji Abubakar Siddique Boniface and Lord Attivor, two of the officials mentioned in the case, as they could not be found. Mr Emile Short, the commissioner, said preliminary investigation was underway to gather evidence to determine whether there was some substance in the allegations made. "If satisfied there is some substance to the allegations, we shall conduct a full investigation which would involve setting up a panel to investigate the allegations," he told the Daily Graphic. "At the moment, we do not have all the information we require to make that determination," he added. Mr Short said the material obtained from the Attorney General was insufficient for CHRAJ to decide whether the case merited a full scale investigation or not. By the Complaint Procedure Regulations of CHRAJ, a complaint to the Commission is to be made in writing or orally to the national office of the Commission or to a representative of the Commission at the regional or district branch of the Commission. In its preliminary investigations, CHRAJ must contact the people against whom the allegations have been made with a request for their response and they in turn shall respond within 10 days from the day of the receipt of CHRAJ's request. Although the regulations stipulated how a complaint is to be made to CHRAJ, the President's request is not being considered as a complaint nor is the President himself considered as a complaint, Mr Short Said. Rather, the President's invitation was being considered as a request to an independent body like CHRAJ to conduct the investigation to avoid any allegation or perception that an investigation by the Attorney General would result in a cover-up or whitewash of the whole affair. Source: Daily Graphic

The M&J Saga, Rawlings And Wife Are 'Guilty' Too.

The NDC dreaded 25th September upon us and the Political fallout is yet to hit them, but folks, believe me, this is a corruption case that even murderer Rawlings is not going to escape without some wounds inflicted on him and his Accountability and probity nonsense being called into question. If Rawlings was really in control of his administration, how come he didn't know what was going on right under his nose? Rawlings was in the loop on this corruption case and the British Government is shielding him to avoid the Political upheaval that might descend on our country if he is named, why do I believe that?' The eating is in the pudding'.

Let's examine the court ruling that came out on September 25th, 2009

"114. The role of Baba Kamara and his value as an agent to M&J is made clear in a document authored by a M&J executive, probably prior to July 1996, and sent to Director A; Director B; Director C and Director E. The document is entitled 'Ghana Review of existing Agent and introduction of alternative Agent' .

WHY IS M&J SWITCHING FROM KWAME OFORI, THE FOUNDER OF THE EAGLE PARTY TO KAMARA? HERE IS THE ANSWER;

"He is the NCE (sic) Treasurer and also the political overseer for the Ministry of Roads and Highways. He is a member of the all powerful NDC Finance Committee which includes Kwame Peprah (Minister of Finance and Minister of Mines and Energy), Obed Asamoah (Justice Minister and Foreign Minister) and Mrs Rawlings amongst others"

M&J switched to Kamara because of the influence he had at that time, he was working closely with the named individuals who wielded a lot of power at that time. Mrs Rawlings in particular was very attractive to the M&J Directors because of the total influence she has over her husband, a murderous Dicatator who was feared because of the way he treated his own Vice President, beating a 68 year old man who he outweight at leats hundred pounds and twenty years older. Let's get back to the M&J issue and tie Rawlings and his wife into it.

"115. Additionally, Mr. Kamaras wife was secretary to the then President of Ghana - the former Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, who had originally achieved power by means of a military coup in 1981. Unsurprisingly, a person in the position of influence of Mr. Kamara was an attractive prospect to M&J as agent for their business in Ghana,"

This Kamara guy might end up being the key in solving Rawlings hidden millions. His wife was secretary to the goon who was the President at the time and this did not skip the minds of the M&J Executives who found in him the avenue to reach the top echelon of the NDC administration. Below is an important quote and forumers who are should examine it carefully as what the intended person the M&J really wanted to entrap. The most important word in that sentence is "DEPLOYED". If Kamara is the final arbitor in this coruption scheme, the who is he supposed to deploy some of the corruption money to?

"that M&J knew and intended that commission paid to Mr. Kamara would be deployed as and when required to corruptly promote M&J commercial interests."

Mabey and Johnson Executives have been dishing out monies to some Ministers and top Civil servants without any assitance, why do they now need a middleman to 'deploy' some of their bribery money ? Somebody is trying to get a pie of this money but don't want their names to be involved. Did Rawlings talk to his secretary to talk to the husband? Your guess is as good as mine. We all know about Rawlings corrupt stories emanating from Nigeria and his interest in that country, how come this KAMARA guy is now the GHANA AMBASSADOR to NIGERIA? Who got that guy that Nigeria gig? Is he being sent there to watch Rawlings interest in that country?

Rawlings, the cognoscente of Probity and Accountability is going to be exposed as a corrupt individual because of his penchant for logorrhea. Rawlings profanity tirades laced with pure hatred for the person of former President Kuffour when he make his speeches in foreign countries would be his downfall. He escaped with the Scancem millions including the 17 million check his wife took from Scancem officials. The next company the government of Ghana should talk to the British SFO to look into as far as Ghana is concerned is the BiWater company whose officials are alleged to have paid for the education of Rawlings Somali adopted children in exchange for a contract in Ghana.

The Person of interest in this saga is Kamara and President Mills should not send him to Nigeria as our Ambassador until we found out from him who else benefitted from this corruption scheme. The other important person who could have been of help is the KWAME OFORI guy who is dead. The Kamara guy and his wife should be protected now before they meet the same fate as Kwame Ofori. The M&J paid 470,000 pounds in bribes in Ghana to win a 20 million pounds contract. So far some names have come ot with how much each received. Out of this 470,000 pounds, only about 115,000 pounds is accounted for, who received the 355,000 pounds balance? President MILLS, that is the question Ghanaians need an answer to.

sarpongjustice@ymail.com

SARPONG JUSTICE

TEXAS

Mabey & Johnson: Sipa Yankey and Seidu Amadu have resigned

Dr. Sipa-Adjah Yankey is yet to make any public statement on the bribery scandal President John Evans Atta-Mills has accepted the resignation of two Ministers of State, Dr. George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, Minister of Health and Mr Seidu Amadu, Minister of State at the Presidency, following the bribery allegations in the Mabey and Johnson case. This follows lengthy closed door discussions held over the last two days with the Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, the Chief of Staff, Mr John Henry Martey Newman, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu as well as other close aides of the President. A statement issued on Friday by the Chief of Staff said the President had also decided to invite an independent body, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), to conduct investigations into those allegations of bribery against Ghanaian public officials in the said case. The statement said the President expressed regret at the resignations and was hopeful that the decision to ask CHRAJ to investigate the case would offer a platform for the public officials named in the case to clear their names and reputations. It would be recalled that on September 25, this year, a London court convicted officials of Mabey and Johnson for paying bribes to Ghanaian government officials for the award of road contracts in Ghana in the 1990s. The Ghanaian officials mentioned in the case included Dr Yankey, who was a director at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, and Alhaji Amadu, who was also a Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways at the time of the alleged bribery. Following the judgement, the President directed the Attorney General to obtain details of the case for further action. Mrs Mould-Iddrisu went to London on October 5, 2009 and held discussions with top directors and high ranking officials of UK's Serious Fraud Office to build data for a thorough investigation into the case. She returned last Wednesday night. Source: Daily Guide/Ghana

Kwame Peprah speaks on Mabey & Johnson bribery

Former Finance Minister, Kwame Preprah The Former Finance Minister, Mr. Kwame Peprah, has expressed shock at an attempt by the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO-UK) to smear him with corruption, in its recent trial of Mabey and Johnson (M&J) over bribery charges.

Responding to an inquiry by The Enquirer as to how he felt about his name being mentioned in the M&J Scandal, Mr. Peprah, who was also a former Minister of Energy and Mines, said he was still at a loss as to why the UK investigative agency sought to impugn his integrity, when there was no basis for that.

According to him, “I really think it’s unfortunate that even though my name hasn’t cropped up to have received any money, my name has been dragged in, to the extent that they cite the ruling in the Quality Grain trial as evidence of a culture of corruption, when the trial judge in that case himself had stated that there was nothing like ‘stealing, corruption or embezzlement’ against me and my other colleagues in that case.”

On Friday, September 24, 2009: A Southwark Crown Court in London presided over by Geoffrey Rivlin, convicted British bridge construction firm Mabey and Johnson for intercontinental corrupt practices in their dealings with many countries, including Ghana, Iraq, Jamaica.

That decision sent shock waves through the length and breadth of the country, as some of the key persons citied in court documents, including Mr. Peprah, happened to be persons either holding public offices presently or had previously held top public offices in Ghana.

I really think it’s unfortunate that even though my name hasn’t cropped up to have received any money, my name has been dragged in, to the extent that they cite the ruling in the Quality Grain trial as evidence of a culture of corruption, when the trial judge in that case himself had stated that there was nothing like ‘stealing, corruption or embezzlement’ against me and my other colleagues in that case.”

But whereas former directors of M&J, whose conduct the court deemed to be criminal to warrant the conviction of the company, have been shielded from the public, by simply assigning letters to represent them, the SFO throws into its submission with careless abandon, the names of officials in the countries where M&J operated.

For instance, in dragging the names of Ghanaian public officials into the scandal and lacing them with a corruption tag, the SFO asserted among others:

“Dr. Yankey was subsequently convicted in Ghana of conspiring to willfully cause losses to state and served a prison sentence, along with Kwame Peprah,” continuing mischievously, that “Their convictions cannot be directly related to payments from M&J, but reflect the culture of government corruption at the time, a culture with which M&J was only too willing to engage.”

The SFO argument that the conviction of Dr. George Yankey, Former Director of Legal and International Affairs at the Finance Ministry and Mr. Peprah, reflected a “culture of government corruption at the time, ‘run contrary to the stated.

Source: The Enquirer

Mabey & Johnson: What will Mills do?

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The government’s response was unsurprisingly typical.

“President Mills has become aware of a judgment in London, convicting a British company, Mabey and Johnson of and its directors after they pleaded guilty to making corrupt payments to certain Ghanaian public officials,” chief of staff, John Newman said in a statement.

“President Mills has instructed the attorney general to request for detailed information from the authorities in the United Kingdom about the matters that have resulted in the conviction. This is to inform a course of action on the matter to include investigations in Ghana.”

If you know Ghanaian politics, you won’t keep your fingers crossed. There will be no “course of action”. That is to say that no one will be punished and the government will go to great lengths to throw dust into our eyes, telling us some cock and bull stories about the lack of evidence or some other meaningless mumbo jumbo to whitewash the named officials. We are going to be fed with a lot of crap about what happened and what did not happen and at the end of the day, it will be like Mabey and Johnson never happened.

The corrupt deeds for which Mabey and Johnson is being punished took place whiles our current President was vice President under the Rawlings administration. The stinking dossier presented by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office indicates that people very high up in the government took huge sums of money from the British Company to promote the firm’s commercial interests here.

Some of the monies were paid to people who had been tasked with the responsibility of raising money for the ruling party at the time – which is the ruling party now. Some of the monies undoubtedly went into the NDC’s war chest that helped Rawlings to win his second term as a civilian president with Atta Mills as his vice.

Whether he cares to admit it or not, President Mills benefitted from the bribes that were taken by the likes of George Sipa-Yankey and Kwame Peprah. They didn’t stash all the cash in their private accounts. Some of it went to the NDC. Mills knows about it and so does Rawlings.

If President Mills tries to take any action against the named officials, he would come across as a turncoat – betraying the party’s cause. Under the circumstance therefore, his best option is to pretend that he’s going to do something, whiles Ghanaians wait and wait and wait – until we either forget or get some other scandal to blow Mabey and Johnson into the dustbin of history.

Every Ghanaian with pubic hair knows that contracts are not always awarded to those who can best execute the job. They are often given to those who are willing to return the favour by offering kickbacks. Conventional wisdom has it that the kickback is usually ten percent of the contract amount. NDC took these kickbacks under Rawlings – despite all his rants about “probity and accountability”. NPP under Kufuor did no different. In fact, Kufuor allegedly took the monies himself – and kept them in sacks in his office, much to the annoyance of his party chairman who complained bitterly and publicly about it.

So the party in power always uses its power to award contract to raise funds for its electioneering. That is why the ruling party is always rich and the opposition party is almost always broke. Just cast your mind back to the elections last year. If the ballots had been awarded on the basis of the wealth of the contesting parties, the ruling party at the time (NPP) would have won the polls by a landslide. They had money – too much of it – to splurge on gigantic and glossy billboards yet people lined up to give them more. At one of their fund-raising events, people holding sacks of cash were turned away because they didn’t come on time and the venue was full. People came to give because they knew that they more they gave, the more contracts they would receive.

The NDC, on the other hand, struggled to raise funds. Whiles the NPP sold out its fundraising tickets, hoards of the NDC’s were left unsold. They were eventually forced to call off the event.

That was in 2008.

At the next election in 2012, you can bet your last pesewa that there will be a role reversal. The NDC will have more cash and the NPP will struggle to raise money. Businessmen will run to donate to the NDC and the NPP will be hard-pressed to organise a decent fund-raiser.

When that happens, remember Mabey and Johnson.

They are not the only ones who have bribed and corrupted public officials like George Sipa Yankey, Boniface Siddique, Ato Quarshie, Obed Asamoah and Kwame Peprah. There are several other companies who pay cash for contracts.

President Mills knows that this happens. But his hands are tired. He can’t do anything without displeasing his party faithful or jeopardising his own political career. And that’s why he will do nothing.

Source: www.atokd.com