Amidu laments interference by civil society heads in his work

Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has alleged that heads of state institutions are deliberating impeding the mandate of his office.

In yet another epistle that outlines the challenges his office faces in the fight against corruption, Mr Amidu alleges that some heads of institutions refuse to comply with laws designed to ensure good governance and to protect the national purse.

“Heads of institutions wantonly disregard statutory requests made by the Office for information and production of documents to assist in the investigation of corruption and corruption-related offences, in spite of the fact that the President has on a number of occasions admonished them on such misconduct. There have also been cases where some heads of institutions have made it their habit to interfere with and undermine the independence of this Office by deliberately running concurrent investigations falling within the jurisdiction of this Office with on-going investigations in this Office for the sole purpose of aborting investigations into corruption and corruption-related offences,” Mr Amidu stated in the write-up dated July 15, 2019.

Mr Amidu’s office was expected to be the most efficient vehicle for fighting corruption in Ghana but it has been criticised for not living up to expectations.

However, in the latest write-up, Mr Amidu said although he has been accused of sleeping on the job, the problem is that his office has only three seconded investigators from the Ghana Police Service with no prosecutor employed directly by the Office for obvious bureaucratic and technical reasons.

“The Office has nonetheless managed to investigate and arraign a number of public officers before the High Court for prosecution, but their heads of institutions have failed or refused to apply the law on interdiction and/ or indefinite leave to deter others from following the same corruption path,” he writes.