The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), has asked the government to make sure the efforts of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), is not undermined.
According to the Centre, without a deliberate attempt from the government to realise the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu succeeded, he was likely not to achieve anything.
Mr Amidu, in a lengthy write up on June 15, 2019, claimed that heads of institutions were making his work as the Special Prosecutor difficult, and indicated that some of those heads of institutions refused to comply with laws designed to ensure good governance and to protect the national purse.
Reacting to the concerns raised by Mr Amidu, the Director for Advocacy and Policy Engagement of CDD, Dr Kojo Asante, stressed that the government must make sure actions of head of institutions does not undermine the work of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
“Who is the one coordinating it from the presidency or whoever is responsible for anti-corruption for the state? There has to be a deliberate action by the government to ensure that we are not undermining the efforts of the Office of the Special Prosecutor
“We’ve seen that before between the Economic and Organised Crime Office, Bureau of National Investigations and National Security, even Bulk Oil Storage Transport issue, does not help, but also waste of resources.
“The resources are already limited, when these matters are raised, my proposal is that, there has to be coordination protocol between agencies and the government has to be at forefront when matter is corruption-related, it is OSP that has mandate according to OSP law and takes over everybody,” Dr Asante asserted.
According to Mr Amidu, “heads of institutions wantonly disregard statutory requests made by the office for information and production of documents to assist in the investigation of corruption and corruption-related offences, in spite of the fact that the president has on a number of occasions admonished them on such misconduct.
“There have also been cases where some heads of institutions have made it their habit to interfere with and undermine the independence of this office by deliberately running concurrent investigations falling within the jurisdiction of this office with ongoing investigations in his office, for the sole purpose of aborting investigations into corruption and corruption-related offences. -primenewsghana.com
