Biased Bedzrah Must Go …Minority Runs To Speaker

The Minority Caucus in Parliament has requested for an “untainted” person  with clean hands to chair the ad-hoc Committee tasked by the Speaker to investigate what led to a chaotic scuffle among Parliamentarians at the Vetting Committee.

The Minority has called for a new chairman to be named on the basis that the current Chairman, Emmanuel Bedzrah, has shown open bias,  made prejudicial comments, has engaged in  witness-tampering and finds himself  in a conflict of interest situation.

According to the Minority, if Emmanuel Bedzrah was not removed as Chairman, his presence could undermine the credibility of the Committee’s work.

Bedzrah has denied the allegations of biased raised against him by the Minority.

“We are concerned about the integrity of the investigation and the potential for compromised effectiveness and efficiency in the investigative process,” Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, the Member of Parliament for Asante-Akim Central noted at the press conference held in Parliament on the ‘Bedzrah-must-be-changed’ agenda.

He continued: “…furthermore, Bedzrah admitted to engaging in private conversations with potential witnesses before their appearance before the committee, raising concerns about witness tampering and the potential to shape testimony in a way that would compromise the investigation.”

“To restore credibility to the committee’s work, we are urging the immediate replacement of Honorable Emmanuel Bedzrah with an impartial and untainted chair,” Anyimadu-Antwi noted.

“… We emphasise the need for a fair, transparent, and unbiased process to ensure the integrity of the parliamentary inquiry,” he added.

Mr. Anyimadu-Antwi alleged that Emmanuel Bedzrah had admitted to contacting some of the witnesses even before they appeared before the Committee: “all engagements with witnesses must be conducted transparently and strictly through official parliamentary clerks to ensure impartiality.

“The Chairman’s action in this regard significantly underpins the credibility of the investigative process and provides further justification for his removal as the chairman,” Ayimadu-Antwi said.

BEDZRAH THREATENS CHAOS

Many have questioned how Bedzrah, of all MPs, would be the one chosen to Chair a committee tasked to investigate chaos when he himself in the last Parliament was threatening chaos in Parliament.

Emmanuel Bedzrah is captured on video telling journalists that he would physically beat up any colleague Parliamentarian who would come near his seat in the 8th Parliament.

“It is only fighting that we would fight today. That is what they want. We are already seated at the right side of the Speaker and they are not in. So if they come and say that I should move from your seat, what is it? I will beat you. I will beat you, yes. Whoever dares today, we would beat the person today. Is the seat for the person?” were the exact words of Emmanuel Bedzrah to journalists, just a few months ago when in November 2024, the Minority Caucus and the Majority Caucus had disagreements over which group should sit on the right side of the Speaker.

Dramatic irony is at play that the same Bedzrah claims he has the moral power, unstained reputation and clear conscience to take up position as the Chairman of seven-member ad hoc committee set up by the Speaker of Parliament to commence enquiry into altercations among his college MPs at the Appointments Committee.

The least expected of Mr. Bedzrah, in his duties as Chairman of the seven-member ad hoc committee tasked to commence enquiry into altercations among his colleague MPs at the Appointments Committee, is to be fair and to not take sides but here he is hopping from one media house to the other is what seems to be a trial-by-media agenda against the Clerk and the Minority Leader.

Chairman Bedzrah, who is expected to be a neutral person in the work of the Committee is on a media spree openly indicting the Clerk to Parliament of deceit and misinformation  as if the media is the platform for addressing such challenges assuming without admitting his allegations were factual.

Bedzrah, as if he has a personal score to settle in his work as Chairman of the ad-hoc committee, has continued his media onslaught and accused the Minority caucus of orchestrating the suspension of the Committee’s work by allegedly passing what he describes as false information to the Clerk.

There are laid down procedures for addressing issues and disagreements with Parliamentary Staff and Chairman Bedzrah ought to have known better that it does not include his trial-by-media approach.

Does Bedzrah, by his conduct remain a neutral Chairman of the Committee by this trial-by-media strategy? In the event the Minority Caucus he is running down in the media responds publicly, would that help in investigating the very condemnable chaos the Committee he chairs was tasked to investigate or it would lead to the beating of colleague MPs as he had threatened to do just a few months ago.