Patently false; I didn't resign over non-payment of my salary – Amidu

Former Special Prosecutor (SP) Martin Amidu, has described as “plainly false” assertions by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that he resigned from office over non-payment of salaries due him, since assuming the office of the SP.

Mr Amidu made the comments in a write up titled ‘Amidu’s Constitutional Defence to Presidential Letter’ in response to a letter accepting his resignation written on behalf of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and signed by the Chief of Staff Frema Opare.

The former Special Prosecutor said: “The President’s directives that create the impression that I resigned because of non-payment of salaries is plainly false upon any reading of my resignation letter.”

According to the former SP, the President’s letter implying that he could have paid his own salary and that of his deputy, from the funds provided to his office is also “patently false".’

“The President’s further directive that I could have paid the salary of my Deputy and myself from any funds provided to my office, for compensation of employees is patently false because the appointment letters issued by the President to the two of us under your signature were addressed to each of us personally at our private addresses and copied to i. Vice-President, ii, Chief of Staff, iii, the Assistant Cont. and Acct-Gen Accounts, Castle Osu and iv. The Chief Internal Auditor, Castle Osu.

“The Office of Special Prosecutor was never copied or instructed to pay the compensation of the Special Prosecutor and the Deputy Special Prosecutor and have no authority to do so in terms of the appointment letters under your signature,” Mr Amidu stated.

He emphasised that the non-payment of his two-year salary was not the reason for his resignation.

Mr Amidu added: “The combination of the falsehood about funds to pay salaries and the allegation that I gave the impression that there was a deliberate intention to ensure my office did not function are not congruent with the other in common reasoning to be attributed to any president except if they were unfortunately intended for propaganda and deception by the President.

“Payment of salaries was not a reason given for my resignation which was premised solely on the traumatic experience I received from the president arising from the professionally conducted Agyapa Royalties Transaction’s anti-corruption assessment report.”

Mr Amidu stressed that he resigned because the President was interfering in his work with regards to the Agyapa deal and wanted him to ‘shelve’ the report which said the Transaction Advisor(s) involved in the deal were susceptible to “nepotism, cronyism and favouritism”.

According to Mr Amidu, the Agyapa Royalties Transaction is suspected to have been “intended to rob the chiefs and people of Ghana of their patrimony as the beneficiaries of the gold extractive resources of our dear country in perpetuity for the benefit of a very few members of the president’s government as distinct from the New Patriotic Party.”