Plot to oust IGP: Go back and complete your work – Speaker directs special committee

A Parliamentary report into a leaked tape alleging a plot to remove the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr George Akufo Dampare, has been shelved by the House.

Following disagreements among the committee members over the final report, the Speaker of Parliament on Thursday, July 4, directed the committee to go back and complete the task.

He argued that the counter accusations and allegations raised by the chairman of the committee, Samuel Atta Akyea, and vice-chairman, James Algalga, have not created an atmosphere in which the House could make a better decision.

“It is very clear that the committee has not completed the job… I direct that further deliberation on this matter be suspended and the committee be called upon to go back to further consider this matter,” he directed.

The Speaker has also issued a gag order against all MPs for ever speaking on this matter in public.

It follows a determination by the Speaker that the committee had not concluded its work after a fierce disagreement between the Chairman of the Committee and the Vice Chairman over the content of the report.

The chairman, Samuel Atta Akyea, explained the committee could not have completed its report without going into the allegations of extrajudicial killings made against the IGP, Dr George Akuffo Dampare.

He mentioned that it was for this purpose—issues of national security that an in-camera hearing was done.

“If three of the members said the issue of investigating the extrajudicial killing is inconsequential to them, then what are we sitting there for?” He asked.

The Vice Chairman of the Committee, James Agalga, in presenting the report, which the chairman refused to sign, urged the House to adopt the report and recommend that the police officers involved be disciplined by the Police Council and the President.

“The committee is of the view that Mr Asare and Supt. Gyebi appeared to have acted in contempt of Parliament according to Order 30 of the Standing Orders of Parliament, 2000, as revised by Order 31F of the Standing Orders of Parliament, 2004.”

Another member of the committee, Peter Lanchene Toobu, a former senior police officer, spoke directly to the allegations of extrajudicial killings against the IGP and said they were unproven.