The Member of Parliament for Asante-Akim-North, Andy Appiah Kubi, who is at the centre of the bribery allegation against an unnamed businessman who tried to influence parliamentarians, has taken officials of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to the cleaners, accusing them of being unethical.
The OPS reached a cul-de-sac and had to end an investigation into the bribery allegation citing Mr. Appiah Kubi’s uncooperative stance among other reasons.
The OSP in its report dated December 28, 2023, said “Mr. Appiah-Kubi’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation and his refusal to disclose the identity of the suspect are most regrettable. It is quite perplexing for a Member of Parliament to level accusations of attempted bribery on a person (whether certain or uncertain) in a most spectacular and public manner on a network of a major media house and then stage a bizarre volte-face by refusing to cooperate with the investigation and refusing to disclose and/or confirm the identity of the suspect.”
But the Asante-Akim-North MP wants the blame placed squarely at the doorstep of the OSP for engaging “boastful” staff whom he suggested were not cut for the kind of job they have been employed to execute.
Letting the public into his first engagement with the staff of OSP, in the absence of the Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng himself, Mr. Appiah Kubi painted a rather disturbing picture of the anti-graft officials which accounted for his refusal to cooperate.
Speaking on TV3’s The Keypoints news analysis programme on Saturday, January 6, 2024, the MP said the meeting took place at the Speaker’s conference room, and even before they zoomed into the agenda of the day, OSP officials started intimidating him and everyone present.
“The OSP officials did not understand the ethics of their profession,” he claimed, alleging that the leader was boastful and asserting that “he is in charge” and even ordering other MPs who were privy to the bribery allegation to leave the room.
He said feeling intimidated as a witness and also not in approval of the approach adopted by the officials of the OSP, he decided not to cooperate.
“They were unethical, I didn’t trust them, they were boastful” he said, and therefore charged the OSP “to train his staff well” to appreciate every environment they find themselves, code of conduct among others because they were “exuding authority they do not have” at that meeting.
“I was treated as a hostile witness, being intimidated, other witnesses who are MPs were sacked because the official said he was in control, that was malicious… If he had comported himself, we would have cooperated,” Mr. Andy Appiah-Kubi asserted.
The OSP started its investigations in 2023 over allegations that a wealthy businessman tried inducing Members of Parliament on the Majority side to back down on their demands for the dismissal of the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
Andy Appiah-Kubi and over 50 New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs in 2022 called for the removal of the Finance Minister.
The MPs later softened their stance after meeting President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on the matter.
They kowtowed to the President’s pleas to have the Minister stay in office to seal Ghana’s bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).