SAlU bAbS M @saludaz - Twitter Profile

Facts for Those Who Want to Reason ************************************* The post I made on the president’s declaration of two vehicles he received as gifts and donating them to the state has sparked attacks, with some inaccuracies, over the President's Ford saga investigation I conducted in 2016. For those who want to argue, here are the facts of the story. Read and make your point. 1. The President’s Code of Conduct at the time of the Ford saga said no appointee should accept a high-value gift from a business entity (except souvenirs), so that their judgement would not be impaired if they were dealing with the said business in their official capacity. Per this provision, the gift should have been rejected. 2. Jibril Kanazoe was a contractor who won the contract to build the controversial embassy fence wall in Burkina Faso and the Nkwanta-Dodi Pepeso section of the Eastern Corridor road. One month after commissioning, the road developed potholes. 3. He also got a GHS82 million road contract in the Upper West Region under circumstances that did not satisfy the single-source procurement requirements. 4. How did the contractor become friends with the president? 5. The contractor said he had put in a bid for a contract in Ghana and did not win. His friend at Mechanical Lloyd, called Morkporkpor, asked that they go and see the then Vice-President Mahama. That’s how he and the would-be president became friends. 6. After that, he won three contracts in Ghana. 7. He gifted the president a Ford Expedition vehicle. 8. The vehicle arrived in November 2012, and the president’s lawyers told CHRAJ that it was fitted with machine guns and added to the presidential pool of vehicles. 9. My investigation revealed that in 2013, the vehicle was officially cleared at the Tema Port by Vision Logistics Limited, a private clearing agent, and duty was paid. 10. So, if the vehicle was put in the presidential fleet in 2012, why was it taken out and cleared by a private company in 2013? 11. The President’s lawyers, according to the CHRAJ report, did not have the answers. 12. When asked a hypothetical question, the president’s advisor on corruption, the late Daniel Batidam, said no minister or president should take a high-value gift from a business entity, especially if that entity was doing business with the government. 13. He said the code of conduct that forbade the president’s appointees from receiving gifts from businesses was binding on the president as well. 14. The CHRAJ report said the president breached the gift policy, but it did not amount to a conflict of interest, a conclusion Emile Short (former CHRAJ Commissioner) disagreed with.

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