Civil society groups in the country have accused the chairman of the Special Parliamentary Committee probing the IGP leaked tape Samuel Atta Akyea of abusing his mandate urging the speaker of parliament to call him to order.
According to President of Imani Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, the civil society groups met the Speaker to inform him that the chairman of the committee appears to be putting the IGP on trial even after the people on the audio have confirmed their voices on the tape
In an interview with CITi FM, Mr Cudjoe said the conduct of the chairman of the committee is affecting morale in the police service.
“We wanted to find out from the Speaker what the original terms of reference for the Committee were. Because we realized that the Committee chairman seems to be setting his own question and answering them. The Speaker was categorical that well, look I gave the Chairman or the Committee specific terms of reference. To get the authenticity of the tape, basically those comments that were made and the persons who made them,” Mr Cudjoe said.
He further noted: “To the extent that those who have been largely accused have admitted their voices and all, well, we thought that the matter must end. So, we were very alarmed that if we do not take care and the way the Committee chairman was handling the issues. Be minded that I’m not mentioning the Committee, because the Committee Chairman is the one directing affairs. Even ranking members have had cause to even walk away at some point in time
Meanwhile lawyers of the Inspector General of Police have denied claims by Mr Atta Akyea that they retracted their accusation of bias against him during the in-camera hearing.
“Based on his actions we believe he is biased; we have said so. Many other people agree with us and indeed we think that it is sufficiently said and dealt with and we don’t need to do what he expects us to do in the committee room.
“So, look, it is a simple matter. We’ve never backtracked and this issue should never dominate the substantive issues. We have never backtracked and we know what we’ve said when we said is what we said, we still stand by it. His actions show somebody who is biased and we hope that he will shift from that position,” a member of the IGP’s legal team Kofi Bentil told Joy FM.
