Ghana’s Parliament says the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) is not getting the required support to fight corruption in the country.
According to a report from the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee on the budgetary estimates for the OSP, there ought to be an all-hands-on-deck approach to fight the canker.
The report signed by the Committee Chair, Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi admonished the Special Prosecutor to “develop the proper strategies, broad sensitisation and an all-inclusive approach in the fight against corruption and corruption-related offences.”
The committee also observed in its report that after a deep-throated interaction with the OSP, it was established that the “Office is not getting the required institutional support in the fight against corruption in the country.”
The report also recommended the House approve the total sum of GH¢149 million for the services of the Office of the Special Prosecutor for the year ending December 31, 2024.
During the debate ahead of the approval of the budgetary estimates for the OSP, the Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, charged the Special Prosecutor not to give up on his work.
He indicated, “We need to support the Special Prosecutor. This is the first time a government has boldly walked a political talk from the manifesto into bringing an enactment to give it the life that it needs. Let’s encourage the Special Prosecutor to do his work. And Mr. Speaker, as a practitioner in our courts… I would want to encourage the Special Prosecutor never to give up. I would want to encourage the office to strengthen itself with the limited resources that it gets, move through the court system, and get the court to appreciate its work.”
Earlier, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin said the creation of the OSP was an act in futility and insisted that the Attorney General’s department should rather be decoupled from the Ministry of Justice.
“As for the law you passed on the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor, I did tell you that it was an act in futility, you were not going to achieve anything but you went ahead and passed it,” he said.
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