Gov’t rejects demands to publish Short report

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has described calls by Minority in Parliament demanding the immediate publication of the Justice Emile Short Commission Report on the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence as premature.

According to him, the report would be made known to the public at the appropriate time adding that, the minority call has been rejected by the government of Ghana.

“I don’t think that we were second-guessing the constitution of the Republic. The constitution of the Republic is clear that when you have a commission of enquiry, you have up to six months to make a determination—a. Whether the report will be made public and if so you publish it and the white paper that goes along with it or—b. If the report contains something for which reason it cannot be made public, the president is required to issue a statement explaining why it cannot be made public,” Oppong Nkrumah told Starr News’s Ibrahim Alhassan on Thursday.

“This is just about what… three months after the commission’s report was submitted, so it will be strange for anybody who knows the law, knows the constitution and is very familiar to it [then] all of a sudden feign ignorance about what the constitution says. I think it is quite clear and we don’t need to belabour that point unless somebody just wants to do some mischief with it,” he added.

He said the Minority’s suggestion for the report to be made public to inform their line of argument is out of place.

“I have heard them put up an alternative argument that due to the bill against vigilantism, I think when you put up that argument again you have challenges. Why do you suppose that without a public outing of the Emile Short Commission’s report persons cannot contribute to the vigilantism bill? It is a lame argument to make,” Oppong Nkrumah stated.

The Commission, which was set up to probe the violence, presented its report to the President but has since not been published yet.

President Akufo-Addo has however said that, the government will do its best to implement the recommendations of the report.

The report among other things outlines the findings and recommendations from the committee’s probe of the violence.