The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) will today begin public hearings into its investigations of five public officials who served under the Rawlings-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, who allegedly received bribe from Mabey and Johnson, when the British firm was operating in Ghana.

The move by CHRAJ follows a call by President J.E.A. Mills that he was going to get the allegations of bribery investigated.

The Commission has already concluded its preliminary investigations into the scandal, and concluded it wants to carry out a full-scale investigation. The five former government officials, who are alleged to have received money from the British firm, are Dr. Ato Quarshie, a former Roads and highways Minister, Alhaji Saddique Boniface Abubakar, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, (then a public servant working at the Ministry of Finance) Amadu Seidu, a former Deputy Minister of Roads, Edward Lord-Attivor, former Chairman of Inter-City Transport Company and Dr. George Sipah-Yankey, former Minister of Health (then a public servant at the Ministry of Finance). Dr. Quarshie is alleged to have received £55,000 from Mabey and Johnson, while Alhaji Abubakar, who was working as a desk officer at the Ministry of Finance, is alleged to have taken £25,000 from the company.

Messrs Seidu, Lord-Attivor and Dr. Sipah-Yankey are alleged to have taken £10,000, £10,000 and £15,000.00 respectively from Mabey and Johnson. When the issue broke out, Dr. Sipah-Yankey, resigned from his position as Minister of Health and firmly promised to assist in any investigations to clear his name.

Mr. Seidu, who was a Minister of State at the Presidency, also resigned from his position.

The British firm was said to have paid bribes totaling £470,000 to some politicians and officials in Ghana at the time it was constructing bridges. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in the United Kingdom investigated the matter, which later prosecuted in court in that country. Whilst some of the affected persons were said to have collected cheques, others had the monies transferred into their foreign bank accounts in London and Watford.

Since the M&J issue broke out, there have been concerns over the manner the British SFO disregarded the rights of Ghanaian officials named in the scandal to be heard.

While they protected the identity of the British officials of M&J, who were purported to have paid the various sums to Ghanaian officials, the Ghanaian officials, who were not before the court, were named.

The conviction of the former M&J directors in the scandal led to the resignation of the named Ghanaian officials.

The verdict of the Southwark Crown Court in the United Kingdom was highly criticized in Ghanaian circles, for showing blatant disregard for the Principle of Natural Justice.

While the investigations were going on, the British SFO publicized its statement of case, impugning the reputation of the Ghanaian public officials, and creating a false impression to the international community that they were committed to fighting corruption.

However, faced with a similar situation regarding transactions in Saudi Arabia, the UK Government declined to investigate the matter, after the Saudi Government threatened to revise their trade relations.

The U-Turn, exposed the lack of political will on the part of the UK Government in fighting corruption in certain jurisdictions.

Interestingly, in the UK-SFO document, the names of the Directors in the purported corrupt transactions were withheld and instead described as “Director A; Director B; Director C; Director D; and Director E”.