Chairman of the Ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Freddie Blay, is scheduled to face committal proceedings at a High Court in Accra today, June 7, 2019.
Blay faces contempt, for his seemingly recalcitrant refusal to react to the numerous requests from the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), to provide the outfit with information on the 275 buses, he is alleged to have purchased for donation to the various constituencies prior to the party’s congress held on July 7, last year.
CHRAJ is reported to have pleaded with the court for a prison sentence for Mr. Blay in the motion on notice for the contempt proceedings. The plea was as a result of the latter dishonoring the outfit’s lawful requests.
On 6th of July 2018, the Coalition of Social Justice petitioned CHRAJ to conduct an inquiry into the role Blay played in acquiring 275 buses purposely for distribution to the 275 constituencies of the NPP party. Hence the commission after her perusal of the petition, decided to conduct a full investigation into the matter.
The motion revealed that on 20th August and September 24, 2018 respectively, CHRAJ sent a letter to Mr. Blay, praying his comments on the said allegations. He was to respond within a period of ten days. But the respondent either failed or decided to deny the commission any comments on the allegations.
According to the motion, on 21st January, 2019, CHRAJ issued a subpoena for Mr. Blay to provide certain key documents regarding the transaction, before January 28, 2019, which he also failed to honour.
Hence, after the several failures on the part of the respondent to accede to CHRAJ’s requests, the outfit took into consideration his busy schedules and further sent a letter dated 11th April, 2019, finally cautioning the NPP Chairman to produce the said documents, which he failed again.
Thus CHRAJ said in its motion, “The respondent, by his conduct, has demonstrated that he has no respect for the law and will not obey the lawful request of the commission unless compelled by the authority of this honourable court”.
Meanwhile in a latest development, CHRAJ has been ordered by an Accra High Court to locate Mr. Blay and duly serve him with a summons regarding the probe into the purchase of the 275 buses which is under investigation.