Emile Short
A former Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Justice Emile Short has accused the current head of the anti-graft agency for the seeming ineffectiveness of the commission.
He said even though the commission, per the law, does not require a formal complaint to zoom into action, the current leadership has failed to explore the power that it has.
“The CHRAJ of today is not the same as the CHRAJ of some 5 or 10 years ago. Today, CHRAJ is not that productive in investigating allegations of corruption because really CHRAJ does not need a complaint to investigate allegations of corruption, but it hasn’t done that as we used to do before,” he told Starr News.
When asked who to blame for the situation, he replied: “Well, I don’t know, you would have to ask the head of CHRAJ himself and to find out why they don’t do that lately,” he however replies in the affirmative to a question on whether he personally blames the current head Joseph Whittal for the lapses, saying “ definitely, absolutely”.
The comment comes on the back of claims by the communications director of the New Patriotic Party Yaw Buaben Asamoah that CHRAJ has been ineffective in the fight against graft over the years.
“We’ve experimented with CHRAJ, it hasn’t worked, we still have to invest in CHRAJ. We’ve experimented with EOCO, it hasn’t worked, we still have to invest in EOCO, we have the Police CID, BNI and all that, ” he told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr.
Responding to the claims, Mr. Whittal said his former boss is ignorant of current happenings at the anti-corruption organization, noting CHRAJ under his leadership investigated several high profile cases under the erstwhile Mahama administration.
“The accusations are not only unfair but misplaced. It is because he is ignorant on what is happening at CHRAJ now”.
-Starrfmonline