Fear grips Mahama appointees as Akufo-Addo gives assent to Special Prosecutor Bill

Fear and trepidation have consumed members Mahama appointees and the opposition National Democratic Congress as the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gives presidential assent to the bill that establishes the office of the Special Prosecutor, the office solely mandated to deal with cases involving corrupt officials and appointees irrespective of the regimes they served or serve under.

Promising to set up an office aimed at ensuring that corruption is reduced to the barest minimum in our governance system, the then candidate Akufo-Addo would sell the idea to the Ghanaian electorate as one cardinal methodology to help quench corruption in our governance system.

The rationale behind the pledge was soundly embraced by the electorate who went out there in their numbers to overwhelmingly endorse the candidature of Akufo-Addo in the 2016 general elections.

The President has not relented in his quest to bring this law into fruition, and for that matter the bill was laid before Parliament. Deliberations on it commenced earnestly but not without some hitches. The Minority in Parliament, on more occasions than can be readily recollected, expressed their vehement opposition to the Special Prosecutor's Bill in its entirety for obvious reasons.

Undeterred by these deliberate blockades introduced in the way of the process, the Majority in Parliament would work tirelessly to fine-tune the bill after which it got passed in Parliament, waiting for the final assent by His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, an event that has since taken shape.

While anti-corruption agencies and bodies have expressed delectation over the fruitful execution of this project which has the potential to decimate corruption in the public sector, members of the opposition National Democratic Congress are trembling convulsively with naked fear as they believe that their corrupt acts would not be ignored by the office of the Special Prosecutor.

Corruption was pervasive in the John Mahama administration, and that explains why fright has gripped some members of the NDC. It is the expectations of many Ghanaians that the Betty-Mould Iddrisu, Barton-Odro, Dr Stephen Opuni, Mr Alfred Abgesi Woyomi, Dzifa Ativor and many others would be arraigned before a court of competent jurisdiction to answer charges of causing financial loss to the state. Many contract sums were also inflated under Mahama, and all these occupy the minds of Ghanaians as the areas deserving attention.

There is an adage that says that when dry bones are mentioned, the aged feel discomfited. Why would anybody get upset without having skeletons in his or her cupboard?