Members of Parliament have cleared Majority Leader, Alban Bagbin, of wrongdoing after he claimed that some parliamentarians receive bribes to do the bidding of groups and individuals.
The House cleared Mr Bagbin after months of investigation into the allegations by a special committee.
Although Parliament is yet to be made formally aware of the findings that cleared Mr Bagbin, the committee concluded that the Majority leader did nothing wrong.
Deputy Minority leader, Dominic Nitiwul, said so far as the House is concerned Bagbin’s allegation is no more an issue.
“He met each person [Parliamentarian] one-on-one and he met us as a group to explain what he meant and I think we understood the angle he came from”, Mr Nitiwul told Joy News’ Parliamentary Correspondent Elton John Brobbey.
The Deputy Minority Leader said the committee that investigated the matter thought Mr Bagbin’s utterances came out wrongly.
“He was saying that it’s difficult as a human being to say that he knows every MP and can vouch that they don’t take bribes or they don’t take [transportation] from orgainsations”, he clarified.
The National Democratic Congress MP for Nadowli/Kaleo told an audience at a STAR Ghana sponsored workshop in March that “MPs are Ghanaians and there is evidence that some MPs take bribes and come to the floor and try to articulate the views of their sponsors.”
Mr. Bagbin’s claims angered his colleague MPS who raised it on the floor forcing the Speaker to direct the leadership to investigate.
But before Mr. Bagbin’s confirmation as the leader of the NDC Majority, Wednesday, the MPs anger seems to have subsided.
In defence of Mr Bagbin’s comments, Mr Nitiwul said the Majority Leader was talking about lobbying and not bribery.
“Lobbying in itself is not a bad thing”, he said.
He explained that organisations are forced to go through MPs when they believe in a cause they think should get to come before Parliament because there are no professional lobbyists.
Using the Right to Information Bill as an example, he said many orgainsations constantly use parliamentarians for the bill to be debated on the floor of the House.
But Vitus Azeem, Head of the anti-corruption group, Ghana Integrity Initiative, says it does not matter whether parliament clears Mr Bagbin or not.
Mr Azeem said on Top Story on Joy FM Thursday that, what matters is whether parliament did a good investigation — something he was doubtful of.
He suggested that an independent body should have looked into the matter instead of a committee set up by Parliament itself.
