The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu in the Central Region, Alex Afenyo-Markin has slammed the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) for going beyond its mandate and engaging in witch-hunting just to embarrass innocent citizens.
The NPP MP disclosed this while contributing to a debate during the second reading of the new Narcotics Control Commission Bill in Parliament yesterday and later in a media interaction.
He said EOCO has become lawless, deviating from its core mandate and pursuing innocent Ghanaians who have not fallen foul of the law.
The MP said a typical example of EOCO’s waywardness is the invitation extended to the presidential candidates of the Progressive People’s Party, Papa Kwesi Nduom and All People’s Congress (APC), Hassan Ayariga for them to be investigated for declaring that they have spent certain amounts of money on their respective parties.
Paa Kwesi Nduom is alleged have spent GH¢1.7 million on the filing of his party’s parliamentary candidates while Hassan Ayariga is alleged to have said on air that he has spent as much as $6 million on the running of his party.
Hon Afenyo-Marking told a section of the parliamentary press that the invitations extended to the two presidential candidates are not grounded in law, arguing strongly that Act 804 does not give EOCO the power to arbitrary invite people to be investigated.
Everything that EOCO does must be guided by law and people who run state institutions and are being paid by the taxpayer must not be allowed to run the institutions like their personal property and take the law into their own hands, if he were Paa Kwesi Nduom or Hassan Ayariga, I would have written back to EOCO to ask them under what law they were inviting me and for what purpose, he indicated.
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