The ad-hoc parliamentary committee probing the alleged ‘IGP leaked tape’ issue has blocked members of the police management board(POMAB) from sitting through the in-camera proceedings.
The senior police officers had accompanied their boss Dr George Akuffo Dampare to the hearing as they did when he first appeared before the committee.
However, during the hearing today chairman of the committee Samuel Atta Akyea asked them to leave before the actual hearing began. The officers thus waited for the IGP in the conference room.
Sources within the committee disclosed that the chairman expressed discomfort with the presence of the police officers.
Meanwhile, Lawyers for the IGP, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, have accused Parliament’s ad hoc committee chairman of prejudicial comments in the leaked audio tape probe.
The IGP’s lead counsel, Kwame Gyan, said that Samuel Atta Akyea had been noted for passing prejudicial comments after every sitting instead of maintaining impartiality.
He recounted a specific incident where the chairman publicly stated that an extended tape submitted by Bugri Naabu, a former Northern Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), had been doctored despite not being played publicly.
“The chairman is operating as if he is a sole commissioner, and we are going to use all necessary legal means at the hearing not to accept this. The chairman has his own agenda. Normally, what happens is that anytime after sitting while we go home quietly, he will gather the press and grant interviews.
“After one sitting, he went out there and said the extended tape which was submitted by Bugri Naabu had been doctored, a tape that has not been played for anybody to hear; he says it has been doctored, very prejudicial comments,” he said in a Joy News interview monitored by theghanareport.com.