It seems anti-corruption campaigner and member of pressure group, Occupy Ghana, Sydney Casely-Hayford, is not out of the woods yet despite his apology to outraged members of Ghana’s legislature, who are bent on grilling him for supposedly insulting them.
Casely-Hayford has been cited for a possible contempt of Parliament after he said at a programme that Ghana’s Parliamentarians make “stupid decisions” and that he would have demolished it and turned it into a tourist site if given the chance.
He has subsequently apologized explaining that he didn’t mean to attack Parliament and that he went “over the top.”
“I indeed went over the top, I do apologize for that. I used some language which I supposed I should not have used. I unreservedly apologize because in matured conversation, when you say something that you offend somebody and you are prompted, the least you can do is to say I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to be offensive, this is where I was going and if it came out the wrong way then I do apologize sincerely, I have no reservation doing that,” he said on Eyewitness News.
But the Member of Parliament for the Kumbungu constituency, Ras Mubarak, who drew the Speaker of Parliament’s attention to Casely-Hayford’s comments described the apology as “weak.”
“It’s a very weak attempt to water down the impact of the sort of very outrageous things he said. A person with his pedigree and stature shouldn’t be making sweeping comments, very derogatory comments, comments that impugn the reputation of parliament. And I think he knew what he was doing. Again the suggestion that we should break down Parliament; that is like encouraging vandalism, he fumed.
Ras Mubarak insisted that, Casely-Hayford’s comments were meant to “impugn the integrity of Parliament and I’m sure he was excited when he was getting all the applause.”
“I see what he is doing now is an attempt to water down what he said. The most important thing is that it’s been raised on the floor of Parliament. We are hoping that leadership will deal with it with a lot of alacrity so that tomorrow people will respect the integrity and authority of Parliament,” he added.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
