Senior Vice President of IMANI-Africa, Kofi Bentil, has thrown his weight behind the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Bagbin’s recent critique of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
While acknowledging the validity of Bagbin’s concerns, Bentil cautioned against decoupling the Attorney General’s department from the Ministry of Justice, arguing that it would not address the root issues.
These claims follow recent remarks by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, who labelled the OSP as an “office in futility” during a parliamentary address on Tuesday, December 12, 2023.
The Speaker emphasised his belief that the OSP would not yield tangible results in the ongoing battle against corruption.
He maintained that the Attorney General’s department should be decoupled from the Ministry of Justice for more effective governance.
In response, Kofi Bentil acknowledged the merit in Bagbin’s position but stressed that the proposal to decouple the Attorney General’s department had been thoroughly discussed in the past.
According to Bentil, the consensus reached was that even if the Attorney General’s department were separated, it would not guarantee the desired results.
Bentil in a myjoyonline.com report, explained that the Attorney General’s department had been tasked with handling anti-graft cases within the government for over 50 years of Ghana’s independence. Despite the department’s authority, structural impediments had hindered its effectiveness in tackling corruption.
Thus, the creation of the OSP was seen as a necessary move to address this issue.
“I see his point. The truth is, the Speaker’s position is very well appreciated, it was exhaustively discussed, there were many viewpoints and the conclusion was that much as it was within the authority of the Attorney General to do that work, over 50 years of our independence that work has not been done by the Attorney General and it’s not for lack of trying, and it’s not because the Attorneys General were not determined to do it, there were structural, real problems why that couldn’t happen.
“So the Speaker’s position was discussed at length and the conclusion that some of us came to, those who were pushing the office of the OSP thing too was that we needed to carve that piece out and create an arrowhead to focus on anti-corruption, going after people who were involved in corruption who tended to be part of the executives,” he said.
What the Alban Bagbin said in Parliament
“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 further expressed his stance, saying, “I have no problem with the AG being a minister; I am only saying that you separate [it] from the Minister of Justice,” he said
ghanaweb.com