Former President of Ghana John Dramani has asked Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo not to compromise the independence of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
John Dramani Mahama believes that if the independence of the office is not compromised like it was under the tenure of Martin Alamisi Amidu, the new occupant of the office Kissi Agyebeng will do an excellent job in fighting corruption.
He also believes that it’s imperative that the office is given the financial muscle to run its affairs and employ the needed hands to help in running its affairs.
“I wish the new special prosecutor well, it was a central plank of Nana Akufo-Addo’s campaign in 2016 and that was his major instrument of dealing with corruption apart from the interview he did, in the debate where he said he will use the Anas principle. As for the Anas principle, he’s abandoned it so let’s put that aside. The Special Prosecutor is virtually his only instrument in dealing with corruption.
Unfortunately, the first special prosecutor did not get the kind of cooperation he needed to be able to do the work that he had been given. We heard him complain of funding in terms of logistics, in terms of finance to recruit the kind of person he needed to do the kind of job.
We heard him complain about that but since then we’ve heard many complaints where the executive and the political establishment had attempted to interfere in his job. The beauty of the Independence of the Special Prosecutor is the Independence of the Office and his ability to investigate corruption notwithstanding whose ox is gourd.
When you take that independence away, it robs the office of its usefulness and I think that our comrade Martin Amidu’s major difficulty was that the independence of the office was compromised as we’ve seen subsequently in the things that he has said and that robbed him of the effectiveness both in terms of compromising his independence and in terms of not providing the adequate logistics and financing to meet optimal functioning of that office. We hope that those things will be corrected under this new special prosecutor
He’s a young enterprising lawyer, he’s got a brilliant career and in private practice, he’s been well respected so now that Parliament has passed him I hope that he will move that expertise and brilliance into the job of investigating corruption across the board.
Most of the corruption age-old would have been held accountable by now and that is why you have people who were in my government standing trial, there are some who have been sent into prison. So some of the corruption that is happening will be happening under the current dispensation and so the fact that this particular President and government-appointed you are you going to be able to cut through and be able to go into investigating acts of corruption that are taking place not only under this government but with people who are very close to the seat of power, that will determine whether he’s successful or he’s a failure but I wish him well.”He disclosed.
