The Majority in Parliament has described as palpably falsehood, claims by the Minority that Mahran Mustapha Baajour, a Lebanese businessman, has been abducted in Ghana.

A member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, John Ntim Fordjour in a statement Monday said, “credible checks conducted at the National Security and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, affirm beyond a doubt that no such person had arrived at the Kotoka International Airport.”

He added that the failure on the part of Ranking Member of the Committee [Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa] and the Minority to verify the facts with the relevant agencies prior to the release of their statement on Sunday, “smacks of deliberate attempt to cause disaffection for the image and reputation of Ghana as they have often sought to do.”

“We therefore strongly condemn the rather mischievous and most unpatriotic falsehood fabricated by the Minority and accordingly urge the general public to disregard and treat with the contempt it deserves…,” the statement added.

Below is their statement:

The palpably false claims of abduction of Lebanese national mischievously made by the minority.

The attention of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament has been drawn to a press statement released by the Minority making rather outrageous allegations of the abduction of one Mahran Mustapha Baajour purported to be a Lebanese businessman of Palestinian origin at Kotoka International Airport, Accra, on December 13, 2018.

We wish to emphatically state that credible checks conducted at the National Security and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration affirm beyond a doubt that no such person had arrived at the Kotoka International Airport, contrary to the palpably false accounts given by the Ranking Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

It is abundantly clear that the claims of the Minority are false, unfounded and holds no truth. More so, failure on the part of the Ranking Member and the Minority to verify the facts with the relevant agencies prior to the release of the statement, smacks of deliberate attempt to cause disaffection for the image and reputation of Ghana as they have often sought to do.

We therefore strongly condemn the rather mischievous and most unpatriotic falsehood fabricated by the Minority and accordingly urge the general public to disregard and treat with the contempt it deserves, the obnoxious attempt by the Ranking Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Minority, to smear the highly reputed image of our beloved country Ghana in the comity of nations.

Ghana is acclaimed in the international community as a country where human rights and the rule of law are creditably upheld and thus, any contemptible attempt by the Ranking Member and the Minority, to falsely portray your country otherwise, in pursuit of parochial and partisan interests should and must be condemned in no uncertain terms.

It is our understanding that the National Security shall accordingly issue a response in due course.
 

Signed

John Ntim Fordjour, MP
Member, Committee on Foreign Affairs
For and on behalf the Majority Caucus