The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has described as worrying news that staff of the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP) including the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, have not been paid for the past 15 months.
“This is very worrying and a recipe for disaster,” the opposition party stressed in a statement on Thursday, December 22.
“The man who is supposed to muster courage to investigate and prosecute politically exposed persons found or accused to be corrupt is kept incapacitated by the Finance Minister refusing to pay to him what he is due,” the statement signed by PPP’s National Chairman Nana Oforis Owusu said.
It further alleged: “The only logical conclusion is that government is acting this way to deliberately make the OSP an ineffective organization whilst corruption continue to destroy our nation.”
The party, therefore, recommended the institution of a statutory fund specially for the OSP.
“This will ensure prompt payment of all salary arrears and financial needs of the office and not an agreement to settle arrears as it has been done by the finance ministry.”
Over the week, there was an agreement reached between the OSP and the Finance Ministry to settle the salary arrears of the former.
But the PPP said only a statutory fund “will help the office of the Special Prosecutor adequately resourced and not have to beg for funding”.
It said a favourable response to this by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo “will demonstrate whether he really committed to fight corruption or he just want to be seen to be fighting to deceive Ghanaians”.
The statement reiterated the ages-long call by the PPP “for a complete separation of the Office of the Minister of Justice from the Attorney Generals Department and for the institutionalization of the AG to make it a non-politically aligned office, having a secure tenure of office with a dedicated source of funding to ensure that ALL persons who deserve prosecution are prosecuted without any political consideration”.