Anti-corruption campaigner Vitus Azeem has stated that activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor’s recent apology to Parliament was due to his inability to provide concrete evidence to support his bribery allegations against the Appointments Committee.

Activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor had alleged that some members of the Appointments Committee were demanding money from ministerial nominees in exchange for their approval. However, after being summoned before the committee, he apologised for making the claim without evidence.

Speaking in an interview on JoyNews' The Pulse on Wednesday, January 29, Mr Azeem said that Barker-Vormawor had little choice but to retract his claim, as proving such allegations without evidence is nearly impossible.

“The apology is provided because he cannot support the substantive issue with hard evidence, and I believe that he provided, he gave an apology.”

He pointed out the difficulty in obtaining evidence for such claims, stating that bribery in Parliament often involves intermediaries.

“When parliamentarians are taking money from somebody, it is not they themselves who will ask for the money or receive the money. There will be a middle person who will go and take the money and give it to them. So you cannot pin it down on a particular MP, and the middle person is not going to admit that they took money or not.”

Despite the apology, the anti-corruption campaigner noted that the perception of corruption within Parliament remains widespread.

“Some of them [MPs], if they can do some introspection, they will admit that this information is out there—that’s a general perception. It may be right or wrong, but it’s a general perception. Just that this man is vocal, and he decided to mention it,” he said.

He urged Parliament to take the allegations seriously and conduct internal reviews.