The Campaign Coordinator for the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) 2016 election campaign, Kofi Adams, says the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice’s (CHRAJ) report partly clearing President John Mahama of any wrong doing in the Ford gift saga, vindicates the party’s long-held position, and also shames his critics.
“Today is a day of shame for them, they [critics] have been exposed that they are only trying to destroy a gem, a pearl that we have,” he said on Eyewitness News.
Kofi Adams, who doubles as the National Organizer of the NDC, also hailed the report as proof that President John Mahama “is not somebody that anyone can bribe, that President Mahama did not receive a bribe and that the gift of ford was not intended to bribe him or influence him in anyway.”
Following a petition by the youth wing of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), demanding a probe into the conduct of the President when he accepted a Ford Expedition gift from a Burkinabe contractor as Vice President in 2012, CHRAJ said it did not find him guilty of bribery and conflict of interest.
Mahama breached gift policy – CHRAJ
CHRAJ however noted that, the President breached the gift policy, when he accepted the gift as Vice President in 2012.
Breach of policy does not mean Mahama is guilty
Kofi Adams conceded that although President Mahama may have violated policy as concluded by CHRAJ, he asserted that, the outcome “doesn’t mean that he [Mahama] is guilty… they did not find him guilty as far as the whole gift matter is concerned.”
He contended further that, President Mahama had purely noble intentions when he accepted the gift as “he had in mind clearly what he was going to use the gift for and that the gift was meant to be used by the state.”
As further justification of President Mahama’s actions, he said, “look into history and look at conventions and practice. Almost all our Heads of State from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah all the way to President Kufuor and the late President Mills, have all at one time or the other received gifts, some of which they have passed onto the State.”
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