Amidu gets deputy

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has nominated a former Acting Director of Public Prosecution at the Attorney General’s office, Jane Cynthia Naa Torshie Lamptey, as Deputy Special Prosecutor.

She will be assisting Martin Alamisi Amidu at the Special Prosecutor’s Office created by the president to help fight corruption in the country.

The nomination of Ms Lamptey, who has more than 30 years’ experience as a lawyer, will have to be approved by parliament.

“Lawyer of 30 years’ standing at the Ghana Bar…and thereby seeks the approval of Ms Lamptey as Deputy Special Prosecutor by Parliament,” the speaker read a letter confirming the appointment.

The speaker of parliament, Prof Mike Oquaye, yesterday accordingly referred her nomination to the Appointments Committee of the house for vetting and subsequent approval when parliament resumed for an emergency two-day sitting. The sitting aims at principally considering and ratifying an urgent agreement – Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – since Ghana is bidding for the right to host the secretariat of the new continental body in Accra.

Meanwhile, the report of the Joint Committee of Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Communications on the new Right To Information (RTI) Bill, 2018 has been laid in parliament for consideration.

The bill is expected to be passed under a certificate of urgency to give more bite to the fight against corruption by the present government.

After the report was laid yesterday for consideration, the minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, raised concern about the urgency of the bill and the short period of time that the joint committee was made to work on it and present its report to the house for consideration.



According to the minority leader, the committee should have been allowed to do further consultations with members of the public for their input rather than allowing it to use just one month to prepare its report for parliament to consider.

The Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area, as at the time of writing this report, had been referred to the Joint Committee of Trade, Industry, Tourism and Foreign Affairs with the leadership of the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs expected to also join to scrutinize it and report back to parliament for consideration.