More OSP cases suffer adjournments

Justice Agbenorsi & Joselyn Kafui Nyadzi Apr - 24 - 2026 , 09:57 2 minutes read

More cases being prosecuted by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) have been fraught with adjournments following a High Court order which declared the OSP’s authority to prosecute as void without prior authorisation from the Attorney-General.

This week alone, three separate cases being handled by the OSP have been adjourned as a result of the order.

The first case is the one involving the former Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, who is standing trial with others for allegedly extorting more than GH¢291 million and $323,407.47 from oil marketing companies.

The second is the one involving the former Public Procurement Authority Chief Executive, Adjenim Boateng Adjei.

The latest case to suffer an adjournment is the one in which former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, and others have been charged for allegedly causing financial loss of more than GH¢1.4 billion in the Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) contract saga.

Defence counsels in all three cases relied on the High Court’s order in a bid to stop the OSP from prosecuting the cases, but the lawyers from the OSP have notified the courts of a stay of execution, prompting the judges in these cases to adjourn the matter.

Order

On April 15 this year, the High Court in Accra declared as void the power of the OSP to prosecute, throwing into limbo the legal status of corruption and other corruption-related cases being prosecuted by the anti-graft body.

The court, presided over by Justice John Eugene Nyadu Nyante, held that the OSP lacked independent prosecutorial power, and, therefore, it could only prosecute by deferring to the authority of the Attorney-General (A-G), in accordance with Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution.

But the OSP reacted strongly to the High Court’s ruling, vowing to take steps to overturn it.

The office indicated that it would continue to prosecute cases already in its hands despite the landmark ruling by the High Court that it did not have the power to prosecute.