Senior Journalist and Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper Kwesi Pratt Jnr has downplayed suggestions that President Mahama has compromised his integrity by accepting a gift from a Burkinabe contractor.
Mr Pratt who was speaking on ADOM FM‘s Dwaso Nsem show Thursday, said every President since the days of Dr Kwame Nkrumah has been offered one form of gift or the other and that it is a normal practice.
“I see nothing wrong with the car gift and I think this issue is much ado about nothing. Is there any President since Nkrumah’s days who has never received a gift? I am totally scandalized about some of the commentary I am hearing on this matter. How can anybody conclude the President has taken a bribe? Since when did gifts to our President become a bribe? Weren’t we in this country when the Libyan president gave a luxurious plush Mercedes Benz to the then President Kufour sometime in 2007? Did we term that as a bribe? Please let’s move beyond these kind of politics”…Mr Pratt told host of the Morning show, Captain Smart
A Burkinabe contractor, Mr. Djibril Kanazoe who has won two contracts awarded by the Ghana government, said his family presented the 2010 Model of the Ford Expedition as a gift.
Joy FM‘s Manasseh Azure Awuni who investigated the matter said the gift was given in October 2012.
Government in a statement, did not deny receiving the gift but said the Ford expedition has been added to the pool of vehicles at the Presidency.
Communications Minister Dr. Omane Boamah added that that the gift in no way influence the award of subsequent contracts to Mr Kanazoe.
But opinions are sharply divided over whether or not the president’s act constitutes a breach of the code of conduct for public office holders or not.
Mr Pratt said the issue about bribery doesn’t even arise in the first place because the transaction regarding the said vehicle was transparent hence cannot constitute an act of bribery.
“Who bribes or accepts bribe and documents it? This is common sense. We do know that the transaction right from the point of giving the car to the Ghana’s mission in Burkina Faso righto the point where it arrived at the port was properly documented, written clearly in black and white and so how can you call this bribery? Is that how bribery and corruption takes places?” he asked.
“If they are able to prove that there is bribery and corruption involved somehow [in this case], then we can all know what to say [but] so far as I sit in this studio, I do not see any bribery or corruption involved in this matter….,” he argued.
Meanwhile the Burkinabe contractor has pulled out of a GHC82million bid to construct a 28-kilometre road.
Roads and Highways Minister, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini told the media on Thursday that Djibril Kanazoe expressed disinterest in the contract “some weeks ago”.
Watch a video of Mr Pratt’s arguments on the vehicle on the show.
An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.
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