Minister-designate for Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong, has rejected claims he deployed national security operatives to unleash mayhem during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election in 2019.
He insisted on his innocence and stressed his conscience is clear and that he has always prayed for an opportunity to explain his side and lift the veil of propaganda that has shrouded his role in the incident.
“I’m grateful I have the opportunity today. For those who want to believe me, I am sure they have moved on. I don’t think this will even provide the opportunity for those who don’t want to believe me.”
“But as long as I have been hurt and my conscience is clear, I think I can move on,” he stated.
The Abetifi Member of Parliament made these pronouncements when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Tuesday, February 20 to be vetted as the Minister for Food and Agriculture.
Bryan Acheampong who was a former Minister of State at the National Security Ministry was grilled by the Committee on the role he played that led to the disturbances at the by-election held in the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency on January 31, 2019.
According to him, all the statements and pronouncements he made following the AWW incidents were in his capacity as a spokesperson for the national security establishment.
His words, he said, were not personal actions that he carried out or how he did things and urged the committee members to therefore put these pronouncements in the proper contexts.
“So if I say that national security deploys for elections, in my time there was only one by-election, but when I was speaking I spoke for all elections. It doesn’t mean that I deployed for the other elections but I kept on saying we as collective because I was speaking for national security and that is just how I have to speak; and that almost landed me in trouble.”
The same issue, he said, cropped up at the AWW Commission of Inquiry public sitting, which combed through the records in order to place responsibility on him for use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ to no avail.
According to him, he never said I but we, which referred to the Ministry of National Security.
He argued that in the 500-plus page report of the Commission of Inquiry, there was no part that mentioned he authorized the deployment.
“So everybody including myself was surprised and afraid that my name found expression in the conclusion that I should be reprimanded. The White Paper rejected that recommendation because it failed to establish the factual basis that I authorized that operation.”
The Minister-designate insisted that the Government White Paper rejected the Commission’s recommendation on his personal liability because it failed to establish the factual basis for that recommendation.
“That is what the white paper said; that you say we should reprimand him for authorizing an operation in a built-up area, but we reject it because you have not provided any reason to support that assertion. So yes, I have been cleared by the White Paper which forms part of the Commission’s report.”
“However, notwithstanding the report in itself and the white paper, it is my conscience that I have to live with. I have to be able to live with myself and I’m responsible for what I do, I cannot be responsible for what everybody else does.”
“And I’m saying that for Ayawaso West Wuogon, I did not authorize it. I didn’t know anything about it and when I had opportunities to speak I spoke in the collective,” he stressed.