Mabey & Johnson investigations:CHRAJ frustrated

By Citifmonline.com
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is frustrated by unsuccessful attempts to get the Serious Fraud office of the UK to cooperate in investigating the Ghanaian officials cited in the Mabey and Johnson Corruption scandal.

On the 25th of September last year, a London court convicted officials of Mabey and Johnson, a UK construction company for paying bribes to Ghanaian government officials for the award of road contracts in Ghana in the 1990s.

The case was taken to the SFO and in the course of hearing; seven Ghanaian officials were named as bribe recipients during M&J operations in the 1990s.

During ` the trial of the case in a UK court, there were confessions by officials of the construction firm to the effect that various sums of money were paid to some public officials in some African countries including Ghana, to influence the award of contracts for the company’s benefit.

The Ghanaian officials cited in the corruption saga include former Minister of Health, Dr, George Sipa-Adja Yankey, Dr. Ato Quarshie, a former Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr. Lord Attivor, Mr. Baba Camara, Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Alhaji Amadu Seidu, a former Minister of State at the Presidency and Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, a former Minister in the Kufuor Administration.

CHRAJ was later asked to investigate and establish the involvement or otherwise of the Ghanaian officials.

But in an interview with Citi News, CHRAJ Boss, Emile Short revealed that the Commission is encountering some challenges in getting the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO-UK) to cooperate in order for the commission to undertake their investigation.

He said that formal hearing into the allegations made against the officials would commence as soon as the anti-corruption body receives documents it has requested from the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO-UK).

“We hope that we could launch into the next stage of the investigation which is the formal hearing but we need to go get some documentation from the SFO UK to do that. So as soon we get that we will start the next stage of investigation…ideally we would want to start our investigations as we get the document we are waiting for”. Mr. Short said.

Mr. Emile Short added that the Commission is only awaiting the response from the UK SFO to determine its next line of action.

“Our investigations are ongoing and we will make a determination of that when we get to a certain point and get the indication whether we are going to get a response either positive or negative from the SFO in UK”. He added.