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We had intelligence on ‘contracts for sale’ before expose —Amidu

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has indicated that the issue of ‘contract for sale’ has been the subject of ongoing investigations as part of a report brought to the attention of the OSP by the Auditor General’s Department several months ago.

It noted that a correspondence between the OSP and the presidency suggested that the recently publicised exposé by Manasseh Azure Awuni, a journalist which indicted Adjenim Boateng Adjei, the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority, resulting in his suspension, had been a subject of investigation by the Auditor General’s Department for several months.

Although Martin Amidu, the Special Prosecutor had stated in the letter to the presidency that he had called Mr Awuni to congratulate him on the work done, he pointed out that, “My office has independently gathered intelligence on the matter and has been provided with facts and materials from other sources, particularly from the Audit Service and the Registrar of Companies.”

He also discounted media publications that his invitation to the suspended Mr Adjei to appear for questioning on August 29, 2019 was due to the instruction from the presidency but the invitation was done pursuant to an independent investigation conducted prior to the airing of the documentary by Mr Awuni.

In another correspondence from the Office of the Special Prosecutor, he praised the presidency for suspending with immediate effect, Mr Adjei but questioned why a similar action was not taken in other cases of corruption it was investigating.

“The fight against corruption must not be “halfhearted, selective or ad hoc” but must rather be unequivocal and non-discriminatory, the trial of some five public officers including an appointee of the government for alleged procurement malpractice in the Bawku Municipal Assembly and questioned why none of them was suspended or interdicted as it happened in the “contract for sale” case.

“This situation creates the impression that the government does not “view corruption as a high-risk enterprise,” Mr Amidu said. -citinewsroom.com

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