Deputy Minority Leader Patricia Appiagyei has handed back GH¢70,000 she received in connection with Parliament’s Appointments Committee, saying she didn’t know where the money came from.
In a September 2 memo to Minority Chief Whip Frank Annoh-Dompreh, she asked that the funds go back to Majority Chief Whip Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, who had passed them to her as an advance.
Appiagyei gave two reasons for rejecting the money. First, she said its source was unclear to her. Second, she didn’t want to profit from vetting colleagues from the Majority side — naming Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga and Environment Minister Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings specifically.
She tied the decision to the Minority’s boycott of the August 27 vetting of three Supreme Court nominees — Justices Sophia Rosetta Oduokuwa Bernasko Essah, Edward Amoako Asante, and Anthony Forson Jnr — which Minority members walked out of over alleged procedural irregularities.
Having taken that stand, she said accepting money linked to the process would be inconsistent, and she denied trying to extort the nominees.
Appiagyei added that her move was also meant to back Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin, who she said had returned his own share of the money, and she reaffirmed her alignment with the Minority Caucus’s position.The episode leaves open questions about the money’s original source and purpose — something Appiagyei says she still doesn’t know.