The former National Chairman of the People’s National Convention, Bernard Monarh has blamed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for frustrating the work and the fight against corruption by the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
Reacting to the statement made by the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Honorable Alban Bagbin describing the creation of the Office of the Special Prosecutor as an exercise in futility, the avid Social Activist argued that the conduct of President Nana Akufo-Addo to clear persons in his administration alleged to be involved in corruption and corruption related issues completely defeat the fight against corruption in the country.
According to Mr Bernard Monah, there are plethora of evidence and cases under the New Patriotic Party administration that President Akufo-Addo has gone ahead to make pronouncement defending the innocence of his officials alleged to be involved in corruption even before various state institutions are done with their investigation on such issues.
He stressed that such conduct by President Akufo-Addo has completely succeeded to undermine the attempts by most state institutions including the Office of the Special Prosecutor to fight against corruption in the country.
“The issue of fighting formal corruption is not an easy one eclipses, this is like a web, particularly when you have a president who tells you that I insist that go and fight corruption and the same President by acts is protecting corrupt officials. It is not possible for you to go and fight that corruption. Why? It is not the former Special Prosecutor who identified Mr President as the Mother Serpent of Corruption. Now when you are the mother serpent of corruption, you can only produce more babies of corruption, right? Is not the former Auditor General that said that look, anyone that wants to fight corruption, corruption ends up fighting you and defeat you?
“And we have seen that, starting from him, the former Auditor General who wanted to fight corruption and what was his crime? His crime was that kroll and Associate which was authorized by the then Senior Minster, Osafo Marfo did not perform a task but yet took one million dollars and the Auditor General asked that Osafo Marfo should pay the money for not performing a task for which the money was paid but at the end he was fought and lost his job. So if the Speaker of Parliament comes out and say that the creation of the OSP is an exercise in futility, it is because the appointor is not willing to grant the leverage for the OSP to fight corruption”.
Bernard Monah
Decoupling Of the Office Of The Attorney General From The Minister Of Justice
Moreover, Bernard Monarh questioned why President Akufo-Addo did not empower and resource the Office of the Attorney General to discharge the mandate of the Office of Special Prosecutor as espoused by several well-meaning Ghanaians if truly the President meant to fight corruption in the country.
According to Mr Monarh, the People’s National Convention in its 2020 manifesto pledged to decouple the Office of the Attorney General from the Minister of Justice to allow the Attorney General Office to independently fight against corruption in the country.
The former National Chairman of the People’s National Convention thus, argued that even though a section of Ghanaians have doubted the workability of the decoupling of the Office of the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice, he strongly believes it is the best initiative if done would help the country’s fight against corruption.
Meanwhile, a member of the New Patriotic Party Communications Team, Mohammed Awal justified President Akufo-Addo’s commitment to the fight against corruption in the country and refused claims that the President is frustrating the works of the Special Prosecutor.
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