Communications team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Hamzah Suhuyini, has argued that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) is obstructive and needless to Ghana’s fight against corruption and pursuit of accountability.
Mr. Suhuyini questions the relevance and the contributions of the office to fighting corruption since its establishment.
He emphasized that the OSP’s operations involving the former finance minister and the Ghana Revenue Authority’s contract with Strategic Mobilization Limited (SML) are questionable, given the lack of clarity.
Mr. Suhuyini recounted that the office had written to the Chief of Staff to ask the government to spearhead the extradition of the former minister for finance, Mr. Kenneth Ofori-Atta, as the office needed him in Ghana for legal investigations.
The office then went ahead to charge the former finance minister and other former government appointees of alleged criminal conduct, while the former minister has yet to return to the country as the office demanded.
However, the spokesperson for the OSP has now granted an interview explaining the processes the office could go through to get the former finance minister extradited to Ghana.
Mr. Suhuyini queried that if the OSP already has ways to extradite the former minister or even charge him in absentia, then why would the OSP write to the Chief of Staff?
He emphasized that while he should be happy that the OSP is going after people who supposedly engaged in corruption, he is also concerned about how the office conducts its operations.
He also emphasized that the quest for accountability and the fight against corruption should not only be focused on political office holders alone but also on the institutions that ought to spearhead the fight.
“I’m clear in my mind that Ofori Atta’s conduct speaks volumes of his complicity in many of these investigations. But it does not also mean that the accountability light should only be brought to bear on political office holders;
“It must also be seen to be active when it comes to institutions under our laws entrusted with the responsibility of expanding the frontiers of accountability and actually upholding the principle of accountability.”
Hamzah Suhuyini, Communications team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC)
He further argued that the office being immune from political accountability makes it difficult for the electorate to demand political accountability from it.
“I am worried, and I am still convinced that that office is needless, it is obstructive in nature, and it is going to make it extremely difficult for Ghanaians to begin to demand political accountability from political office holders.”
Hamzah Suhuyini, Communications team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC)
He noted that oftentimes, the Ghanaian electorates vote, expecting accountability from the people they entrust power to be duty bearers.
However, looking at the Office of the Special Prosecutor, it is immune from such expectations for citizens.
“If you are not careful, at any point in time, Ghanaians vote expecting change, expecting accountability, and the Office of the Special Prosecutor, who in a way is immune from political accountability to the electorate, may at any point in time interfere to make it practically impossible for governments to live up to the true expectations of the Ghanaian people in terms of the demands of accountability.”
Hamzah Suhuyini, Communications team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC)
He noted that just as lawyer Martin Kpebu has argued, he will support any intention to bring about political accountability to the OSP.
However, he still emphasized that the Office of the Special Prosecutor needed not to be created.
Mr. Suhuyini argued that the office was only created by the previous administration of the New Patriotic Party in order to score “cheap political gigs.”
“We all have come to realize that indeed it adds nothing to our quest for accountability when it comes to issues of corruption; what it does rather is that it has burdened the public purse.”
He therefore emphasized that he supports the view that the Office of the Special Prosecutor be scrapped.
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