The five-member ad-hoc Committee constituted by Parliament to investigate the alleged extortion of expatriates who participated in the recent Ghana Expatriates Business Awards (GEBA), will begin public sittings\u00a0on the matter on Thursday, January 11, 2018.<\/p>\n
The members of the Committee, however, sat yesterday [Monday], to set out the modalities for their work.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”oPxQqiBRGqWhZYbcoqGqhvIYpjGBMIoJ”] The Member of Parliament for Adenta and a member of the Committee, Yaw Buaben Asamoah, confirmed this on Eyewitness News, <\/strong>adding that they were ready to thoroughly probe the issue in the best interest of the nation.<\/p>\n “We sat to establish the framework for delivering the onerous duty that Parliament has given us to discharge on behalf of the whole House. The Speaker in his wisdom decided that this matter is dealt with as thoroughly as possible by a bi-partisan Committee. That is progress, we haven\u2019t had that opportunity for several years. We sat and set out the modalities,\u201d he said<\/p>\n Questions had been raised as to whether the Committee’s sittings would be open to the public, as had been the case during the investigations into the alleged bribery of members of the Appointments Committee in 2017.<\/p>\n However, the Adentan MP clarified that the Committee’s sessions would be open to the public, with the first sitting set for Thursday.<\/p>\n He also stated that the Committee will invite members of the Minority who had called for the probe into the matter, the Ministry of Trade and any other parties that might be involved, to give their submissions on the issue.<\/p>\n “We’re going to have a public hearing which is akin to what we saw before and we’re starting on Thursday, and we’re going to invite the proponents of the motion as well as the Ministry about who the motion was made and to the extent that other parties are relevant, we’ll extend our arms towards them,” he said.<\/p>\n ‘Terms of reference’\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The Minority had expressed concerns after Parliament’s emergency sitting last week that the terms of reference for the Committee had not been spelt out by the Speaker when it was convened.<\/p>\n However, Mr. Buaben Asamoah dismissed these worries stating that the Committee was working with clearly defined terms of reference which had originated from the motion submitted by the Minority themselves.<\/p>\n “We are going to investigate the alleged levy and collection of sums of money from the expatriate Community by the Ministry of Trade. Secondly, we are going to determine whether the payments were made, how, when and where they were paid out. We are also going to investigate collateral matters, any relevant issues and whether or not anything was done at variance with the law as far as levying or payment of those monies were concerned. We are covered. We do have terms of reference,” he added.<\/p>\n