Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin expressed his conviction that the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) amounted to an exercise in futility.
Bagbin’s remarks shed light on the skepticism surrounding the efficacy of the OSP, raising questions about its purpose and impact.
Given the presence of offices such as the Attorney General’s Department and the Ministry of Justice, the Speaker deems the creation of the OSP unnecessary.
Speaking during the consideration of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values, 2021, the Speaker of Parliament reaffirmed his stance that the office will not achieve any results in the fight against corruption.
Speaker Bagbin insists 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.
The assertion by the Speaker follows similar sentiments expressed by the Minority in Parliament since the establishment of the Office.
Earlier, the group had alleged that the Office of the Special Prosecutor has not been able to successfully prosecute a single case of corruption for punishment.
Speaking to journalists, the Minority Chief Whip, Governs Agbodza, said the office was unnecessary in the face of numerous investigative bodies in the country.
“While some of us believe that that office was needless, because EOCO, CID and financial crime unit all those offices can combine and do a good job, the government insisted that the OSP will do more jobs. Are you aware that as we speak, they have not been able to successfully prosecute a single case, and anybody punished? So the question is how useful is that office? So we are saying that other people could have done the same thing,” he noted.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor was established after an act of Parliament passed the Office of Special Prosecutor Bill in 2017.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) is an independent specialised agency responsible for performing four (4) main functions.
- The OSP is tasked with investigating specific cases of alleged or suspected corruption or corruption-related offences involving public officers and persons who have been entrusted with prominent public functions in Ghana or a foreign country or an international organisation such as senior political party officials, government officials, judicial officials, military officials, a person who is or has been an executive in a foreign country of a state-owned company, a senior political party official in a foreign country, and an immediate family member or close associate of such a person, as well as persons in the private sector involved in the commission of such offences.
- The OSP is mandated to prosecute offenders involved in the commission of corruption and corruption-related offences on the authority of the Attorney-General.
- The OSP is empowered to recover the proceeds of corruption and corruption-related offences.
- The OSP is required to stake steps to prevent corruption.