Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday, 09 September 2015
Popular lawyer Phillip Addison
says the Ghana Police Service has no ‘business’ interfering in matters
concerning the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on the basis of hearsay.
He said the recent invitation of
some top NPP executives by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over a
‘secret’ bank account feeds into the perception that “either the police has an
agenda against the NPP or is being manipulated by the party’s opponents.”
Unnecessary Intervention
The NPP’s First National Vice
Chairman, Freddie Blay and National Treasurer Kwabena Abankwah-Yeboah were
invited by the CID for questioning over what the police claimed was the setting
up and running of a ‘secret’ bank account in the name of the party by the two
gentlemen.
Curiously, the police in their
invitation to Messrs Blay and Abankwah-Yeboah could not disclose the
complainant.
As a result, some of the party’s
members are accusing a shadowy group within the NPP of using the police to cow
the stalwarts while others have claimed it was one Baah Achamfuor who was ‘pushed’
to lodge the complaint.
How Funds Are Used
Mr Addison, who made a
last-minute withdrawal from the race to become the NPP’s Klottey Korley parliamentary
candidate citing a flawed process, said the money in the so-called ‘secret’
account belonged to the NPP as an association and that it was up to the party
to set up an investigative committee to find out how the funds were used.
He also said that “if the funds
are found to have been misappropriated, it is then that the party officials
could decide to refer the matter to the police for investigation,” adding, “but
as it is now, the police are interfering unnecessarily.”
“Who determines whether the
money has been spent properly or not? It is certainly not the police but the
party itself,” he stressed.
NPP As Private Entity
Mr Addison said the NPP is a
private association governed by rules and regulations and not a public
institution and that the police could not just move in to investigate issues,
especially when it is without recourse to the executives.
He said that “it would have been
a different scenario if an executive member of the NPP had lodged the complaint
with the police,” asking, “how did an ordinary member get to know that a secret
bank account exists in the name of the party in the first place?”
Police Manipulation
He said the attempt by the
police to investigate the ‘secret’ account issue shows how some people are
trying to use state institutions to ruffle the rank and file of the party.
“Somebody is clearly
manipulating the system to try and embarrass the NPP and cause disaffection
within the party,” he noted.
Klottey Korley Issues
Mr Addison, who represented the
petitioners in the landmark presidential election petition in the disputed 2012
election, did not understand why the police had allegedly turned a blind eye to
complaints of forgery lodged by a party member in the Klottey Korley
Constituency against one of his contenders but could swiftly act on a matter of
hearsay.
“If the police are minded to
investigate this unmeritorious secret account matter then why have they
neglected what was reported long time ago concerning a candidate in our
constituency which are based on hard facts? Clearly, they have failed to act after
establishing a crime.”
“The police themselves
established that crime had been committed but till date no action has been
taken. What is the motivation now to investigate a complaint by a party member
who has no locus?” he queried.
According to him, the person who
is being touted as the complainant in the ‘secret’ account matter “has no firsthand
knowledge about the workings of the executives of the party.”
Opening Floodgates
He noted that “this can open the
floodgates for anybody at all to get up and lodge a complaint against any of
the executives of the party and the police will follow it up.”
“The complaint has to be based
on facts. So far, what the police is doing is clearly based on hearsay,”
Addison added, stressing, “What is happening clearly tells us that this whole
thing is being orchestrated by our opponents and they are unfortunately using
our own members to prosecute the agenda.”
“The police left undone, the
things they should do and are busy with the things they are not supposed to do,”
the lawyer further observed.
No comments:
Post a Comment