Kabila To CHRAJ Boss: How Can You Work For So Many Years And Not Own Any Housing Property?

A former National Youth Organiser of the Convention People�s Party (CPP), James Kwabena Bomfeh says it is �extremely unbelievable� for the Commissioner for the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ms Lauretta Lamptey, to say that she does not have a house of her own after working for so many years in the corporate world. The CHRAJ Boss is a lawyer and an investment banker and has worked in various capacities. She was once the head of the Capital Markets Group at Ecobank Ghana. She moved from there to become head of Corporate Finance at Cal Merchant Bank. The CHRAJ Commissioner is also known to have provided legal, financial and investment advice to the Government of Ghana on transactions related to mining, energy and natural resources. She once served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Commercial Bank. But she was recently caught in a needless controversy after it emerged that her African Union (AU) Village apartment cost the state $148,500 in 33 months of rent; that; that is from November 2011 to April 2014. Her critics want her to resign for what they believe is profligate expenditure on her part. However, Ms. Lamptey, who is currently living in a hotel with her children after checking out of the AU Village property, has dismissed the claims that she has been extravagant saying it is the responsibility of the state to provide her with a befitting accommodation even though she is a native of Accra. According to her, she does not own a property anywhere in the country, and rather lived in her mother's house prior to her appointment as CHRAJ Commissioner, but that house became unavailable because her mother travelled to the United States for vacation and locked the place for two months. �I don�t have a house in Ghana. I don�t have a house anywhere else; I do not own a house,� she maintained adding that it is the duty of the state to house her anyway. �The state has an obligation to house me whether I�m a native of Accra or�anywhere else. The job structure involves being housed; the compensation is based on �we are providing these things for you�, Ms Lauretta told the media. Speaking to the issue on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo", Kwabena Bomfeh, popularly known as Kabilla queried why the CHRAJ boss, despite having served in these various capacities did not own any housing property. �She was a board member of the Ghana Commercial Bank in 2009 and as board member she was collecting sitting allowance. Couldn�t she have saved those allowances to build a house or at least buy one? We have a lot of people who worked from their homes�I think it will do her a lot of good if she keeps quiet. Will she do that if she was operating her own company? I don�t think so�� Looking at the figure involved (accommodation renovation), Kabila suspects that she has accomplices who helped her in collecting such huge amount from the state. �She couldn't have done it alone�she had helped from somewhere; this matter has just begun we will push and press till we get to the bottom of this matter,� he added.