The Member of Parliament for the Bawku Central constituency, Mahama Ayariga has rejected claims that he fabricated the bribery allegations he made against Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko.
Mr. Ayariga had accused the minister of attempting to bribe the ten minority members on parliament’s Appointments Committee with GHc3000 each, in a bid to lure them to approve him as the Energy Minister.
But the Chairman of the Appointments committee, Joseph Osei-Owusu claimed that Mr. Ayariga had retracted the claim and apologized.
He also said on Eyewitness News that the claim was fabricated by the Bawku Central MP.
However, speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, Mr. Ayariga said he still stands by his claims and has not apologized.
“There was no apology, there was no retraction. The comment about me retracting my statement is totally inaccurate; there was no retraction whatsoever of what I said on Radio Gold. If you listen carefully to what I said, I recounted facts, facts that I can swear an oath to that these occurred and I was involved,” he argued.
How the money get to minority
The Bawku Central MP explained that they had earlier confronted the Chairman of the committee about their sitting allowance hence when the money was given them, they thought it was to cater for the purpose.
He further added that they returned the money when they realized that it was instead coming from Boakye Agyarko who the minority had refused to approve because of some comments he made about former President John Mahama during his vetting.
“Some members raised some rumours going rounds in the House that Agyarko brought money and we approved him. He [Minority Chief Whip, Mubarak Mohammed Muntaka] promised to check and when he checked he said chairman confirmed that it was from Agyarko and we said we don’t want Agyarko’s money. So we returned the money to our Whip and asked him to return it to our Chairman.”
Prosecute Agyarko
When asked by host of The Big Issue, Umaru Sanda Amadu on whether he would call for the prosecution of Mr. Agyarko, Ayariga said “that is the Attorney General’s job now.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin