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| Kwesi Pratt: Corruption Engulfs police and Government |
5/16/2009 |
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The managing editor for the Insight newspaper, Mr. Kwesi Pratt has criticised the Ghana Police for allegedly being corrupt in the course of their duties. Speaking as a resource person on Peace FM’s “Kokrokoo” morning show, Mr. Pratt said, our security personnel who are supposed to protect us are themselves corrupt and fraudulent that is why there is so much corruption in our government. He based most of his critics on the police saying their corrupt nature also contributes to the rampant accidents in the country.
He explained that instead of checking and preventing drivers and cars which are not worthy from plying our roads, the police take bribe and allow them to go and they end up killing people. He cited what happened at the Accra Circuit Court on May 11, as an example, when seven accused persons including two police officers were remanded into police custody for allegedly dealing in narcotic-related business. These accusations came about when Mr. Pratt attempted to react to a statement made on Peace FM by the NDC General Secretary, Mr. Asiedu Nketia that, the former Speaker of Parliament should be arrested and prosecuted for taking the State''s household items including refrigerators, washing machine, furniture and several others after his term of office.
Mr. Asiedu Nketia was speaking in reaction to the Daily Graphic newspaper headline Story yesterday about the former Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Begyina Sekyi Hughes titled “Ex-Speaker Is Hot - He’s To Return Items Worth GH¢1.6m to the State. The paper further reported that, the former Speaker was also to pay GH¢1 million for some items he took away when he left his bungalow and keep the rest, which were valued at GH¢36,800, at no cost to him. According to the paper, these were some of the recommendations made by a Parliamentary ad hoc Committee chaired by the Minority Leader in Parliament, Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu. The Committee was constituted to investigate allegations against the former Speaker that he had taken away household appliances valued at GH¢4.5 million from his bungalow at cantonments in Accra.
Meanwhile, Hon. Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu whom the paper itself reported as having chaired the committee for the investigation granted an interview on the matter on Peace FM. He debunked the newspaper’s report about the former Speaker, saying the report is false, especially the amount it quoted was wrong. He said the paper quoted high figures which did not come from the committee.
In a related development, the Daily Graphic newspaper has apologised to the committee and the general public, saying it quoted wrong figures. They wrote: “In our front page report yesterday on the items to be returned by the former Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi Hughes, the amount we quoted for the items to be returned should have been ¢1,668,631,461 (old cedis). In converting that amount to Ghana cedis, we erred in coming up with the figures of GH¢1.6million, instead of GH¢166,863.10 as the right conversion. The error is regretted. ”
By John Nyaaba, peacefmonline.com
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