Bryan Acheampong
Minister-designate for Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong has categorically denied ordering the security operation at Ayawaso when violence erupted at the La-Bawaleshie polling station two hours after a bye-election began.
Mr. Acheampong told the Appointments Committee of Parliament during a public hearing that the government’s white paper rejected the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry into the incident because they were unfounded.
He, however, said the Ayawaso incident was a stain on Ghana’s democracy and expressed sympathy for those who were injured on that fateful day.
“I must add that the Ayawaso incident is a blot on our democracy. I pray that it doesn’t happen again. I sympathize with those who were wounded on that day.
“Indeed, when I was at the Ministry of National Security, all those who were wounded were treated at the 37 Military Hospital and all expenses were paid by the state that authorized the operation,” he noted.
The Ayawaso West by-election was held on January 31, 2019, following the death of the incumbent MP, Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko, on November 21, 2018.
The minister designate described the incident as his “waterloo,” intimating that he had been held liable for something that he did not know anything about.
“I have perused the 500-page report of the Ayawaso West Wagon Commission and my name was not mentioned anywhere in the report as having done anything.
“If you look at the findings of the report, except for Chapter 3 – findings and recommendation bullet point one seven,” he stated.
He said the report, “In this regard, the Commission finds that these persons (SWAT team) were deployed and commanded by a police officer named DSP Samuel Azugu under the authority of the Director of Operations of the National Security Secretariat and with the ultimate responsibility of the Minister of State for National Security.”
Mr. Acheampong said he was not too sure what the Minister of State for National Security was doing in “this finding because no evidence was adduced in the committee to suggest that the Minister of State for the Ministry of National Security was in fact the authority under which the SWAT people [conducted their operations].”
“Not being part of the operation, not being part of the command on that day, to come and place a finding that the Minister of State must have ultimate responsibility,” he suggested.
“If you look at the recommendation it frightens me. Of course, the commission did not recommend, notwithstanding the issue of facts that I have against it, my prosecution because there was no fact to support that,” he asserted.
He added, “But they placed an individual liability on me. And the individual liability is born out of the fact that the Commission recommends that Mr. Bryan Acheampong be reprimanded for his ultimate responsibility as Minister in authorizing an operation of that character on a day of an election in a built-up area.”
“Even in the unlikely event that I was the Minister of State and authorized that operation, what I am being asked to be reprimanded for is not correct,” he stated.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House