Amidu wants to make missing excavators issue a ‘foolish case’ - ASEPA

Executive Director for Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) Mr. Mensah Thompson, has charged the government of Ghana to resource the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Auditor-General to work effectively in the fight against corruption.

To him, CHRAJ and the Auditor-General have been doing fantastic work in the country and they must be resourced to continue to do the fine work they are doing as there is no hope and benefit coming from Mr. Martin Amidu and his office of the Special Prosecutor.

“We have CHRAJ and Auditor-General doing fantastic work in the country in the fight against corruption. let’s resourced these institutions to continue to do the fine work they are doing and forget Mr. Martin Amidu and his office of the Special Prosecutor because there is no benefit from there”, he declared.

Mensah Thompson’s comment comes after the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OPS) declined a petition by the ASEPA to investigate alleged acts of thievery and corruption hindering the fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.

The Office explained that it cannot establish acts of corruption or corrupt related offenses mandated by its binding law to investigate.

“A review of your letter of complaint, however, has led this office to the conclusion that the facts and conjectures upon which you underpin your complaints do not raise any issues of corruption and corruption-related offenses as narrowly defined under section 79 of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959) to warrant an investigation by this office,” a statement signed by Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu read.

Reacting on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, the ASEPA Boss claimed there is a deliberate attempt by Mr. Martin Amidu to allow the CID make a foolish case out of the matter.

“Martin Amidu said that CID is politically tainted and cannot be left to investigate matters such as politically-induced corruption. The same CID that Martin Amidu claims they are politically tainted is now saying that they should investigate the missing excavators? You could see that there is a deliberate attempt to allow the CID to make a foolish case out of this matter”, he fumed.

Without mincing words, Mr. Mensah Thompson said that Mr. Martin Amidu is actually working hard to make those involved in the missing excavators to get away with it; thus, “they want to destroy the case and later they will come out to say that they have cleared all of them”.

The Executive Director of ASEPA thus called on Ghanaians not to waste their time and energy on the Special Prosecutor so the outfit cannot carry out any effective investigations.

“So clearly, the Special Prosecutor’s office has become redundant and it is not an office where I will send a petition to....

“We have a case against the registrar of the nurses and midwifery council; that case is still with the office of the Special Prosecutor. We have other cases that are still pending with the Special Prosecutor and nothing better has been done about it. In fact, we sent a petition to CHRAJ not long ago on asset declaration against the chairperson of the EC, the two deputy chairpersons, and the Chief Justice and right now as we speak, CHRAJ is almost concluding their investigation and this goes further to buttress the point that the existing state institutions can effectively work; there was no need to have set up any office of the Special Prosecutor for Martin Amidu to waste Ghanaians time. Special Prosecutor’s office who cannot investigate acts of corruption against politicians, is that one too a special prosecutor’s office? what is special about this prosecutor?”, he jabbed.