SP bemoans lack of support for corruption fight - Calls for reforms

The Special Prosecutor (SP), Kissi Agyebeng, has bemoaned the lack of appetite and willingness to support the fight against corruption, despite its negative impact on the socio-economic well-being of the country.

He described the state of the fight against corruption in the country as paradoxical because “everyone wants the Special Prosecutor to do his job, yet no one wants the Special Prosecutor to do his job” and people say “We must fight corruption, but we must not fight corruption.”

“This has translated into a rather curious cycle – the outburst of an outcry where the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) acts; and an outcry where it is seen as not acting.

It all depends on where we stand in respect of an active investigation.

Our collective behaviour shows that we do not reward integrity, and we do not want to reward integrity,” he said.

Reforms

Mr Agyebeng was delivering the 5th Constitutional Day Public Lecture organised by the University of Professional Studies (UPSA) Law School and a civil society organisation, One Ghana Movement, last Friday.

It was on the theme: “A Few Good Men: Suppressing and Repressing Corruption and State Capture in Aid of Development”.

To enhance the fight against corruption, the SP called for constitutional reforms to ensure that the Office of the Special Prosecutor was made a constitutional body with its independence protected by the Constitution.

“Therefore, the quest should be an entrenchment of the fight against corruption in the Constitution, a retrofitting and full equipment and insulation of the foremost anti-corruption law enforcement institution from political marginalisation and reprisals,” Mr Agyebeng said.

Again, he called for a comprehensive law on corrupt practices to provide an adequate and effective statutory framework to support the fight against corruption.

The SP stated that the current legal framework on corruption was “unclear, unhelpful” as it did not clearly explain what exactly corruption and corruption-related offences as stipulated in the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s (OSP) Act meant.

“We are stultifying ourselves with these preventable shortcomings in our formulation of laws and the legal fictions employed to prop up legal principles in a seemingly unsuccessful attempt to give them a semblance of validity. We would do ourselves a world of good if we state out clearly and in simple terms the acts and conduct we are prohibiting,” he said.

“On this score, we must forcefully address unexplained wealth not only among public officers but also private persons, with biting lifestyle auditing. Then again, we must highlight the vexed question of the opacity of attending political party financing and the monetisation of public elections. This would surely change the narrative,” he added.

Mr Agyebeng further called for the establishment of specialised courts, manned by trained judges with a mandate to swiftly deal with corruption cases.

“Corruption itself is curtailed through justice. And the absence of justice begets corruption. It is much like light and darkness. The brighter justice shines, the dimmer corruption gets,” he added.

Effects of corruption

The Special Prosecutor described corruption as a canker that not only destroyed the future of the country but also robbed people of opportunities, making a few well off to the detriment of the majority of persons.

“We hear stories of corruption in almost every interaction with the systems of the State.

We hear talk that, apparently, one needs to pay a bribe to obtain some government jobs, to obtain school postings, to pass exams, to triumph in elections, even to obtain some state identification documents,” he said.

“The list is endless. In a society governed by pay-to-play rules, the poor and the marginalised lose out completely,” Mr Agyebeng added.

Corruption, he said, had also led to state capture, making the country worse off as the resources and decision-making process are controlled by a few.

“In effect, the captured economy is nothing more than a reflection of the few captors who steer the nation solely for their private benefit to the woe of the aggregate national interest,” the SP said.

“The few captors become the State, and the State is reduced to merely a sort of private property. In this scheme of affairs, nothing stands in the way of the few captors, and they engage in corruption to fantastic degrees,” he stated.

For his part, the Review Lecturer for the occasion, Prof. H. Kwesi Prempeh, who is the Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee, said he was full of hope when the OSP law was enacted, but now he had become a sceptic.

“I have become frustrated due to the various ways and means we have devised to make the OSP not work,” he said.

Writer’s email: emma.hawkson@graphic.com.gh