Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng
The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, has called for anti-corruption measures to be embedded in Ghana’s Constitution, arguing that the fight against corruption must be directed at prevention rather than prosecution.
Speaking at the Constitution Day Public Lecture on Friday, February 28, 2025, he emphasized that Ghana’s approach to corruption has been ineffective because it prioritizes punishing offenders rather than eliminating opportunities for corruption.
“Write anti-corruption into the Constitution, tighten it, put the OSP into the Constitution, kill the argument. Let us start fighting. We are pretending.
“Preventing corruption is a better focus than after the fact, running after it. If we manage to prevent people from committing these offenses in the first place, that is a far greater achievement than imprisoning a handful of people,” he stated.
Kissi Agyebeng pointed out that Ghana’s legal system allows corruption cases to drag on for years, making it difficult to secure convictions swiftly.
“If we manage to imprison, let’s say, four or five people in a year, I’m being optimistic. The way our legal system is arranged, lots of lawyers and lots of law students, a good defence counsel can delay the case for years”, he indicated.
Agyebeng also criticized the current legal framework, arguing that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) was not given sufficient powers to focus on preventing corruption.
“The main function of the OSP, which should be corruption prevention, was buried in Regulation 31, as if we do not even want it to be a priority,” he remarked.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) was established by the former President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in 2018 as a specialized independent anti-corruption institution in Ghana, in pursuance of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
JKB/KA
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