Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng
Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, has disclosed in an interview with Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM’s flagship programme, ”Kokrokoo” that his office has only one employee despite its mandate to employ about 250 people.
It could be recalled that the former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu made some claims to justify why he couldn’t employ adequate number of people to assist with his work coupled with other challenges, one of them has to do with the controversial Agyapa deal, resulting in his resignation.
According to Kissi Agyebeng, he came to meet only one person on the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) payroll which, to him, is disturbing.
He detailed why the office has only one staff member although he disclosed the members were 10 in number; all of them except the employee on payroll are secondment.
He intimated that, when he began his duty, one of the staff members resigned for personal reasons, hence reducing the number to nine workers.
The workers he, therefore, inherited include drivers, cleaners, a prosecutor on secondment from the AG’s office and an investigator on secondment from the Ghana Police Service.
Shocking Kwami Sefa Kayi with these revelations, Kissi Agyebeng expounded; ”The main job for the OSP appears to be done by only one person. When I checked the 2019 Appropriation Act, it states that the setup we need is 251. If 251 and I have only one, then I have huge task . . . You are a Special Prosecutor but we have given you divisions.
“Some of the divisions include Finance and Administration; there is no HR. We have given you Prosecution Divison but there’s no Prosecution Division. Investigation Division isn’t there. Asset Recovery and Management isn’t there. The law says the office can create more divisions but if the ones stipulated in the law isn’t available, not to talk of what you (Special Prosecutor) must set up.”
He, however, pledged to commit to his mandate to recruit more people to facilitate the work of the Special Prosecutor.