Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga East, Dr Dominic Ayine has stated that the apology rendered by his colleague NDC MP for Asawase, Hon Mubarak Muntaka Mohammed may have been in the interest of keeping Ghana's growing democracy intact.

According to him, Mr. Muntaka came to the conclusion he did after extensive consultation with other colleagues.

The Asawase lawmaker, in a press release on February 6, apologized and retracted allegations of bribery leveled against an unnamed Supreme Court judge, after the election of the Speaker of Parliament, acknowledging that, not mentioning any judge's name in his allegation might have harmed the reputation of all the judges as well as the judiciary as a whole.

In reaction to his apology, however, Dr Ayine told the host of Newsfile, Samson Lardy Anyenini that he serves as an "an advisor to Muntaka on many of these matters. I am deeply involved in this and I know what actually happened.”

The former Deputy Attorney General believes the right thing has been done, he, however, said Mr. Muntaka should have made investigations into the matter before making his claims public

“Our democracy is still fragile and we need to as much as possible ensure that it grows very well. Sometimes, when these things happen, you have institutions locking horns or personalities in institutions locking horns,” he added.

“The judiciary driving an MP to a committee hearing or contempt proceedings and so forth… Remember we are two coequal branches of government and the judiciary wouldn’t have been able to say that Parliament should not make an enquiry into this.

“And if we were making an enquiry into this and it is a public enquiry, you’ll find out that the two arms of government are at loggerheads and fighting each other,” he stated.

Suraya Alidu Malititi