AMIDU Opens Fire …My Request For Information To Work Are Disregarded

The government’s fight against corruption has a long journey to go unless some drastic action is taken against defaulting heads of institutions as suggested by the Public Services Commission.

This according to the Special Prosecutor, Martin Alamisi Burnes Kaiser Amidu is the path to choose if Ghana’s quest to root out corruption is anything to go by.

The Special Prosecutor office, aka “Citizen Vigilante” was expected to be the most efficient vehicle for fighting corruption in Ghana but it has been criticised for not living up to expectations.

Sleeping?

In another letter, cataloguing litany of complaints his office faces in the fight against corruption, Mr Amidu is sure heads of state institutions are deliberately impeding the mandate of his office.

He claims some heads of institutions refuse to comply with laws designed to ensure good governance and to protect the national purse.

In the latest write-up, dated July 15, 2019, 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 said.

“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.”

The “Citizen Vigilante” further adds that there have also been cases where some heads of institutions have made it their habit to interfere with and undermine the independence of his Office by deliberately running concurrent investigations falling within the jurisdiction of his Office with on-going investigations in this Office for the sole purpose of aborting investigations into corruption and corruption-related offences.

He said what is worrying to his Office as an anti-corruption investigation and prosecutorial agency is the refusal of heads of institutions to take steps to enforce basic rules of discipline governing their institutions even when they know that their officers are under investigation, have been cautioned, bailed, and eventually even charged with corruption and corruption-related offences.

Call

The Special Prosecutor wondered why Public officers who have been charged, arraigned before the High Court and their pleas taken would return to their work places and work normally as though they have never been suspected of committing any corruption offences.

“Unfortunately, the experience of the Office of the Special Prosecutor is that when it comes to fighting corruptions and corruption-related offences, heads of institutions think that the rules on interdiction and/or indefinite leave of public officers do not apply to corruption and corruption-related offences” Mr. Amidu noted.

“What does the Government and the public expect the Office of the Special Prosecutor to do when heads of institutions refuse or fail to support the fight against corruption and corruption-related offences by not vigorously applying the regulations intended to aid the fight against corruption and other crimes?” he asked.

Mr. Amidu argued that corruption and corruption-related offences are offences committed primarily by public officers and one does not ordinarily expect heads of public institutions to protect public officers suspected of committing those offences even when they have been charged and put before the Court.

For this reason he urged that the Office of the Special Prosecutor cannot fight corruption unless the public and civil society give it their fullest support and put pressure on the political elite to obey the laws that enable the Office to achieve its mandate.