chair of BBC Admitted that he acted as an “agency of introduction” on a loan of £800,000 boris johnson but refused to say He will resign if criticized by an official inquiry.
Mr Sharp denied he had facilitated the loan for the then prime minister, who later supported his appointment to lead the broadcaster.
He acknowledged that he had visited Mr Johnson to discuss the job before applying, although he insisted their relationship was “widely professional”.
In a sometimes brutal questioning by MPs on the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee, Mr Sharp insisted he “did not arrange the loan”.
However, he did admit that he introduced his friend Sam Blyth to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case after Mr Blyth suggested he could ease the prime minister’s money woes.
Mr Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker, also said he was sorry for the “embarrassment to the BBC”.
But he declined to say whether he would resign if the investigation into the case was critical of his actions.
He told MPs that he would “need to see what the investigation produces” and insisted that he had been “subject to a very rigorous interview process” and had been appointed “on the basis of merit”.
Mr Sharp appeared before the committee before becoming BBC chairman.
But he was again dragged in front of them after the details of his involvement in the loan came to the fore.
Its chairman, Damian Green, told Politico before the session began: “We would like to establish whether we were right to approve his appointment, and whether everything we should have known was kept from us.”
During the hearing, Mr Sharp agreed with Mr Green that he “acted as a sort of introducing agency” between Mr Blyth and Mr Case. “I was really seeking to ensure that proper procedure was followed to ensure that Mr Blyth contacted the Cabinet Office before doing anything to help his cousin,” he said Said.
He added that he did not give personal financial advice to the former prime minister, saying “I know nothing about his (financial) affairs, I never have”.
He was accused of a “huge failure of judgement” by Labor MP Kevin Brennan for not telling the committee about the arrangement at his pre-appointment hearing last January.
Mr Sharp insisted he had “acted in good faith to ensure the rules were followed and in that sense, I am not sorry for that”.
Current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Mr Sharp’s appointment appeared to have been made “rigorously and transparently”.
But he added: “It is right that people have faith in the process and that is why the Independent Commissioner on Public Appointments is revisiting the process to make sure everything was done correctly.”
Public Appointments Commissioner William Shawcross was due to hold an inquiry into how Mr Sharpe got the job, but last week recused himself, saying the pair had met “on previous occasions”.
Solicitor Adam Heppinstall Casey has now been appointed to lead the investigation.