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The Managing Editor of The Insight newspaper, Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jnr. says he cannot understand all the noise being made about the assertion of Mr. Kwame Pianim that President Mills is not corrupt. He also questions the objective of those calling for the names of persons Pianim alleged to have offered the president bribes and said if there are inconsistencies in the statements made by Mr. Pianim, it should not be Professor Mills who should be asked to address those inconsistencies. Kwesi Pratt was speaking on a Radio Gold�s discussion programme on Saturday. Mr. Kwame Pianim last week Monday said he knew President J.E.A. Mills not to be corrupt and that he had seen the president return two envelopes offered him to its owners. The comments have since generated a huge public debate with the minority in parliament threatening to impeach the president and calling on him to name those behind the envelopes for prosecution. According to Kwesi Pratt, he had listened closely to what Mr. Pianim said at the Joy FM Debate 2009 programme and that a lot of things being attributed to him were simply not true, and that he suspected that they were being attributed to him in order to create the grounds for mischief. Describing the debate that has ensued since the declaration as �mischievous, unnecessary and irrelevant,� Pratt said what Mr. Kwame Pianim simply said was that he could vouch for the honesty and integrity of Prof Mills but he could not say that he saw former President Kufuor and former President Rawlings returning brown envelopes. He did not say that he saw them collecting envelopes. He said some of the points being made include one that Prof Mills as a lawyer and a former vice-president beside holding many other high positions in his life, ought to have known that it is a crime and therefore ought to have taken some action to ensure that the bribe givers were punished. �That is a very fair comment,� Pratt said, explaining that if indeed President Mills received or rejected bribes, he ought to have taken measures to ensure that the bribe givers were punished, under normal circumstances. However, Kwesi Pratt pointed out that sometimes our own ignorance is our major problem, explaining that under the law, (and per his layman�s understanding), information obtained by virtue of privilege cannot be disclosed, such as in certain circumstances, relations between husband and wife or a journalist obtaining privileged information even when it involves the commission of a crime. He said to determine whether indeed the president ought to have reported those who allegedly offered him brown envelopes, (bribes if argued in context), it is important to know who made the offer and under what circumstances. This will determine if the president was indeed under obligation to disclose the information leading to the punishment of those who gave the brown envelopes. He said given the context within which Mr. Pianim was speaking, the envelopes were meant to corrupt the president, because his statement relates to corruption. �He makes the point that if you go to any country and the country is corrupt, the leader ought to be corrupt. He spoke about the brown envelopes in relation to his belief that President Mills cannot be corrupt, he is not a thief and so on. So obviously whatever brown envelopes were given to President Mills, if you examine it in context, relates to corruption. So that argument by supporters of Prof. Mills and elements in the NDC and so on, will collapse if you begin to look at it within context.� He said however that he is yet to hear from any of all those making the noises and calling on President Mills to name names, make the point that they personally know the president to be corrupt or that there is any evidence that remotely links him to corruption, saying that for any to say that Mr. Pianim�s appreciation of President Mills is not correct, the person would have to prove that Mills has indeed engaged in corrupt practices or that they have reasons to believe that he is corrupt. �Nobody has so far been able to produce any evidence or if you like, circumstantial evidence suggesting that President Mills is corrupt. So why the noise?� Kwesi Pratt said very prominent persons, including some in the New Patriotic Party such as President Kufuor and MP P.C. Appiah-Ofori, have all publicly proclaimed the good character of President Mills who has well established his credentials beyond what Kwame Pianim has to say about him. Another thing that he finds shocking, he said, is an attempt to compare what Pianim said to what ex-President Kufuor said on corruption (among others, that corruption has persisted since the days of Adam and that given the pace at which offers were coming to him, he had to sometimes pinch himself to remind himself that he had sworn to fight it) at the NPP�s Conference in Cape Coast and to equate the two as same. He said what ex-President Kufuor said, was a self confession while Pianim�s is his opinion of someone (President Mills). �If there are inconsistencies in the statements made by Mr. Kwame Pianim, should it be Professor Mills whom we should be calling upon to address the inconsistencies? If indeed, even what Mr. Kwame Pianim says are not true, should it be Professor Mills who should be held responsible? For statements which are not factual? I can�t understand this, and prominent citizens of Ghana, lawyers, members of parliament, party bigwigs, are making statements calling on Professor Mills to explain the inconsistencies in Mr. Kwame Pianim�s statements�� He wondered what the agenda of those making �the noise� was and said if it was to commit people in authority at the highest level to punish crime, especially crime based on corruption or arising out of corruption, then where have those people been all this while. Pratt recalled �the very famous case� of the member of parliament who bought a brand new car, insured the car comprehensively and took it to his hometown and hid it, and then bought an accident car which looked like his car and attempted to claim insurance, asking if anything happened and whether anybody made any report to the police on that occasion. �All of us also remember the very famous case in which persons in the Castle allegedly used Castle letterheads, forged documents and allegedly fraudulently obtained monies from the bank and so on, what happened? Was there a prosecution?� He questioned.