Martin Amidu needs education – Law lecturer

A law lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Justice Srem Sai has suggested that Martin Amidu’s lack of expertise in handling a specialized office like the Special Prosecutor may be a contributing factor to the underwhelming performance witnessed since the office was created, ABC News Ghana can report.

The GIMPA law lecturer proposed that Martin Amidu, may require some education to better his skills to help him deliver in his position as Special Prosecutor.

Justice Srem Sai explained that the Special Prosecutor’s Office requires some skills and expertise beyond what is known by the average lawyer hence the necessity to train Martin Amidu and other lawyers that will work at the OSP.

This, he believes will go a long way in creating a robust anti-corruption agency that will be able to deal adequately with the cases brought before it and set him apart from other lawyers.

“What I will prefer we take serious from now is expertise. We need to train the Special Prosecutor himself and all the lawyers that we are going to recruit. These people need special training. When you go to a law school you are taught just the basics but if you want to build a robust anti-corruption agency then your personnel need to be different from the average lawyer that you find on the street” the law lecturer indicated in an interview monitored by ABC News Ghana.

Justice Srem Sai is of the view that the broad scope of work of the OSP is a major challenge crippling its operations and making it ineffective more than a year since it was set up.

He is advocating that stakeholders revisit the issue of the scope of work to limit the Office to just politically related corruption so the already existing institutions deal with other forms of corruption.

“I will suggest we start thinking about scope. Because just imagine that we limit the scope to the original intent, ‘Go after persons who are in government’ and when there is a conflict between you and another institution over a person who is in government it is the special prosecutor who will prevail can you imagine how much change it will bring? In any case the AG and other institutions are doing the other works,” he lamented.