Tamale Central MP Inusah Fuseini has said if the Akufo-Addo government and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) have credible reasons to prosecute opposition members who served in the Mahama administration, they should go ahead and do so but act within the remit of the law without trampling on the rights of the persons involved.
“If anybody in the previous administration is involved in the commission of a crime, he should face the rigours of the law, but in facing the rigours of the law, the constitutional protection that still inures to the suspect must be respected, that is all that we are saying,” the former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources said on Friday, 28 July.
“You can’t treat Members of Parliament, you can’t treat members of the previous administration as if they are plain criminals, you don’t treat them that way,” Mr Fuseini told Accra-based Citi FM in an interview following the raiding of the homes of two government officials on Friday dawn.
The homes of former Deputy Power Minster John Jinapor and former Deputy Attorney General Dr Dominic Ayine were raided by officers of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service in search of documents covering the controversial $510million Ameri power deal signed by the Mahama administration.
Speaking on the raid, Mr Jinapor said: “They gave me a letter signed by Bright Oduro inviting me to come to the CID (Criminal Investigations Department) office at 1pm on Monday but Monday 1pm, I’m told the Minister is presenting the mid-year budget to parliament.”
Mr Jinapor said: “I’m not against investigations; sometimes investigations are good and I am ready to cooperate with the police and any other agency in relation to this matter. I think that the truth will come out but it should be done in a humane way”.
The raid comes three days after men from the CID confiscated laptops, phones and other electronic devices of the former Co-ordinator of the Emergency Power Programme at the Ministry of Energy, Francis Gyata following a similar raid at his home in Accra.
That raid was on Tuesday, July 25 as part of ongoing investigations into the Ameri power deal.
The raid in Gyata’s home also followed a similar raid at the home of former Power Minister Dr Kwabena Donkor on Monday where four officers of the CID led by an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) stormed the Spintex residence of former Minister to search his property in connection with investigations into the same deal. Dr Donkor is being accused of willfully causing financial loss to the state.