Akufo-Addo won’t withdraw “plagiarised” address - Majority

The Majority in Parliament has rejected calls by the Minority in Parliament for it to withdraw the inaugural address of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo because of alleged plagiarism.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic on behalf of the Majority yesterday, the MP for Abuakwa South, Mr Samuel Atta Akyea, said it was very unfortunate that the Minority wanted to make capital out of the errors with respect to some attributions.

 The apology

He said all that could be done was the apology that was rendered by the director of communications of the President.

Therefore, Mr Atta Akyea said President Akufo-Addo needed not to render any apology since the author of the address had accepted responsibility and apologised.

He said the only thing to do now was to amend the address and incorporate the corrections.

“Doesn’t  the apology by the President satisfy them. It is the man who made the error who has apologised. What is the point. He has been embarrassed because the communications director failed to peruse the document. The man who has been embarrassed should apologise? I do not think that is the way to go,” he said.

Go wayward

Mr Atta Akyea said the Minority “should not go wayward” and that they should rather focus on supporting efforts to move the people out of poverty.

The Minority in Parliament last Monday called for the withdrawal of the inaugural address of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo because of the alleged plagiarism in the address.

It said considering that the address was made before Members of Parliament (MPs) in compliance with the 1992 Constitution and same having been captured by the Hansard Department as part of the official records of Parliament, the Minority demanded that the address be withdrawn and expunged from parliamentary records.

A statement issued by the Deputy Minority Leader, Mr James Avedzi, said the President would be given the liberty “to resubmit another speech not tainted with fraud and reflecting all attributable sources.”

Certain portions of the address delivered last Saturday were said to contain some statements from former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton of the United States of America (USA) without any attribution.