Kwaku Ansa-Asare, a former Director of the Ghana School of Law (GSL), has said the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to created to exonerate appointees of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Mr. Ansa-Asare says he doubts the effectiveness and impartiality of the Office especially with the current occupant of the position of the Special Prosecutor (SP).
According to him, his judgement about the Office could have been objective if it had a person like Martin Amidu occupying it, rather than the current SP in the person of William Kissi Agyebeng.
The former GSL Director in a Tuesday, May 28, 2024 interview with Citi FM expressed reservations regarding the OSP’s effectiveness in combating corruption.
Rather than serving its core mandate of curbing corruption in Ghana, Ansa-Asare thinks the OSP might be serving the interest of the ruling party.
“I could objectively judge the contributions of the Office of the Special Prosecutor if we had a person like Martin Amidu [former OSP] as the Special Prosecutor. But the person we have now is one of the appointees who might have been brought there for a purpose.”
“So far, what I can say of the Office of the Special Prosecutor seems to me was created purposely to exonerate NPP offenders,” he said.
Inaugurated in 2018, the OSP was conceived as an independent anti-corruption body in Ghana, aligned with the principles of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).
Its core mission is to investigate and prosecute specific cases of alleged or suspected corruption and related offences across both public and private sectors.
Beyond its prosecutorial duties, the OSP is also entrusted with the responsibility of recovering proceeds derived from corrupt activities.
This entails seizing illicitly obtained wealth and implementing preventive measures to curb future instances of corruption.
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