The controversy surrounding the Addison committee’s AMERI-sponsored trip to Dubai, will require a thorough investigation since the situation is complex, a former Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile Short has said.
According to him, although the incident appears to be a clear case of conflict of interest, the context in which it occurred makes it quite peculiar and complicated.
A 17-member committee chaired by Philip Addison, was constituted by the government to investigate a power deal signed by the erstwhile government with AMERI.
The committee said it discovered the former government paid $150 million more than they were expected to pay.
The Minority in Parliament has claimed that, the committee’s report was biased, and was compromised by AMERI’s sponsorship of the team’s trip to Dubai to meet AMERI’s executives.
The Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo, in an interview with Citi News, said the Philip Addison-led committee did not compromise itself by allowing AMERI to fund its trip to Dubai, but according to Justice Emile Short, the situation is quite complex, and requires some tact before conclusions can be made.
“We have to look at the special circumstances of this case. The provision of government especially with regards to this AMERI deal and the fact that the company was the one that insisted that the committee should travel abroad…So these are the parameters which any institution investigating the matter would have to take into consideration. It is not your normal situation,” he said.
“Ordinarily speaking, when a committee is going to investigate a matter, it is true that the person or institution that is going to be investigated should not be seen to be giving benefits or providing facilities for the committee investigating the matter, but in the peculiar situation of this case, there is a twist,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Minority has given indications that it will petition the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice to investigate the matter, which it has described as “embarrassing, unethical and shameful.”
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