Samuel Atta Akyea, the chairman of the Parliament’s ad-hoc committee, overseeing the case of the alleged plot to remove the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr George Akuffo Dampare has debunked content of a leaked draft report revealing the verdict of the investigation.
According to him, members of the committee are still waiting on the clerk to tease out a report for their consideration.
“With the greatest of respect, this is not the handiwork of the committee, ” the committee chairman said, dissociating the leaked draft report from the committee.
This implies that, whatever has been put in the public domain, per the legislator, is not a reflection of the committee’s activities.
“The members of the committee are waiting for the clerk to tease out a report for our consideration and it is very distasteful that anybody bandies this about that this is the report of the committee. A report of the committee will be signed by a committee chairman and the clerk,” Atta Akyea noted in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Joy News.
The allegedly leaked draft report vindicates the IGP and indicts the three police officers named in the leaked tape saga.
According to Atta-Akyea, the committee is yet to make any recommendation on the case, thus the public should disregard the content of the said leaked draft report.
It will be recalled that the Vice Chairman of the special parliamentary committee probing the leaked tape on the plot to remove the Inspector General of Police, James Agalga, earlier noted that their work is done and expected to be submitted to Parliament.
According to him, the report is at a draft stage, awaiting validation by members before being handed over.
He clarified that the 2024 budget and other responsibilities in Parliament prevented committee members from reconvening to finalize the report as the standing orders of Parliament stipulate.
The Ranking Member of the Defence and Interior Committee emphasized that the committee will convene to adopt the report once members are done with the budget estimates.
His comment comes after a non-partisan group on Thursday, December 14, 2023, called for an update on the report by the ad-hoc committee.
“The committee has concluded the investigations, and we have a draft report that is yet to be considered by all the members of the committee because, per the Standing Orders, draft reports are subject to approval by the members of the committee, so that is what is outstanding”.
“Unfortunately, we are in the budget season, and all the members are caught up in their various committees and are working on budget estimates. I had warned that there was a need for us to act expeditiously so that we could have skipped the budget season, but things did not happen that way, so we are hoping that as soon as we are done with the budget estimates, we can convene and adapt the report”.