North Tongu Member of Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has said the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) is expected to do more in tackling financial irregularities than it s doing at the moment.
Although Mr Ablakwa recognizes that the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng is doing his best under a terrible condition, much is required of him to look into cases of financial irregularities especially involving government officials.
Contributing to a discussion on a report compiled by by Imani Africa titled “Financial Recklessness Index: Can The Government Rein Itself In,” on TV3’s Key Points Saturday June 4, he said ” Probably, it is high time we stopped appointing political figures to the Attorney General’s Department.
“One of the things that we thought the OSP would do, that he is independent, he is not cabinet minister, but unfortunately that office is still a pale shadow, it hasn’t really fulfilled the hopes and dreams that we had.
“I want to see a more aggressive Special Prosecutor who wades into these [financial irregularities]. At least the new one is showing some glimmer of hope but there is more room for improvement, he still doesn’t have a board, he doesn’t have the resources, deliberately starving the OSP, so I don’t blame him too much, he is doing is best under very terrible conditions.
“Are we really committed, these are billions of cedis, if we are able to save them, protect the public purse we wouldn’t be having the debt to GDP that we have.”
A Researcher at IMANI Africa, Dennis Asare who also spoke on the same show revealed that 2015 and 2020 tax irregularities amounted to about ¢1.2 billion.
This, he said, indicates that there is weak enforcement of financial regulation.
“2015 and 2020 tax irregularities is about 1.2billion which indicates that there is weak enforcement and there is a challenge in enforcing compliance,” he said.
Mr Asare added “We have lots of loopholes preventing the government from raising the right funds to help with our projects.”
Source: 3news.com|Ghana