Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen and officials of the Ministry of Trade and Industry have been cleared of any wrongdoing by the  5-member ad hoc committee of Parliament following extortion allegations made against the ministry.
MP for Asawase, Muntaka Mubarak last year accused the Ministry of charging expatriates $100, 000 to sit close to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during the Ghana Expatriates Business Awards.
The 5-member Committee while presenting a 146-page report to Parliament for approval, February 6, 2018, stated: “… After the hearings and the analysis and evaluation of the evidence adduced before it has come to a conclusion that there is no merit in the allegations leveled against the Ministry of Trade and Industry as contained in the Motion and which culminated in the setting up of the Special Committee.â€
The committee further recommended that the Controller and Accountant General and the Ministry of Finance should consider in the formulation of the new Regulation of the PFM Act, adequate provision to cater for public-private partnership arrangement and emerging or contemporary issues.
They also recommended that the practice of some Members of Parliament trooping to the media to make allegations against highly placed officials must cease.
The committee further suggested that "MP's who indulge in such acts ought not to be heard in Parliament if they should thereafter bring those matters before Parliament for Parliament to deliberate on the matter.â€
Meanwhile, the Minority in parliament in a report laid before Parliament on Friday, February 2, accused the Ministry of Trade and Industry of engaging in “serious ethical violations†by allowing its credibility as a public agency to be used to “amass profit†at the awards.
The two members from the Minority side, James Klutse Avedzi and Dr. Dominic Akuritinga Ayine in a dissent report said: "The Trade Ministry and Industry engaged in serious ethical violations by allowing its credibility as a public agency to be used to amass profit for a private non-profit organization which it cannot hold to public standards of accountability as well as by using the name of the President of the Republic as a means to make such profit."
In a radio interview, Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine said the Majority side of the committee seeks to totally exonerate the Trade Ministry and organizers of the event Millennium Excellence Foundation.
The report also stated that the Trade Ministry contravened existing law on public financial management, particularly the Financial Administration Regulations, by allowing the use of an existing account for the receipt of monies that it claimed were private funds.
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