This submission is made as ordered by the Supreme Court on 16th October 2019, to assist the Attorney General by providing available evidence in order to enable the the enforcement of the judgment debt against Waterville Holdings (BVI) Limited.

Is the hearsay falsehood being put out by the Acting Director of Public Affairs of Parliament alleging claims of sabotage simply a misguided or malicious reaction to the Special Prosecutor’s latest trending video interview with David Ampofo? Even though this Acting Director has signed a press release allegedly on behalf of the Parliamentary Service, the truth is that she did not attend the meeting and her commentary is simply hearsay. Let anyone of the Leadership of Parliament who was present at the meeting with the Special Prosecutor and his Deputy on 4th June 2019 rather speak up about what transpired at the meeting so that the Office of the Special Prosecutor can publish its contemporaneous memorandum (in which the meeting events were recorded) for those interested to judge as to what truly and really transpired at the meeting.

It is more than one full year since an Arbitration Tribunal brought the arbitration proceedings in the Waterville Judgment Debt Case to an end in a manner favourable to the Republic of Ghana. I am returning to court in my personal capacity as the only person with enough vested interest in the conclusion of the case after having procured the decision, orders and directions of the Court contained in the judgment dated 14th June 2013. Even though I bring this application in my personal capacity as the Plaintiff/Applicant in the above case, I have since 23rd February 2018 been the Special Prosecutor of Ghana with the mandate to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and recover assets and manage proceeds of corruption and corruption-related offences. Consequently, I am also at the time of filing this application responsible for preventing the non-enforcement of the Court’s 2013 judgment which was actuated by an unconstitutional create, loot, and share syndrome as lucidly and ably articulated in this Court’s said judgment.

Presented at Annual Conference of the Internal Audit Agency, Accra Conference Center, 14 - 15 August 2019. Lessons learned since 1957 show that the extent to which the role played by the Office of the Special Prosecutor in protecting the nation’s resources succeeds or fails, will depend on how the President and his Government’s anti-corruption vision is either supported or obstructed by his political and other public office appointees. In the past eighteen months there has been latent resistance and, currently, massive bi-partisan pressure is being exerted to tacitly influence decisions of the Courts around the Special Prosecutor’s qualifications for his appointment and interpretation of his execution mandate. If these actions succeed, they will only demonstrate to the electorate in Ghana and the international community the absurdity of Ghana’s commitment to the goal of combating corruption and protecting the nation’s resources through the instrumentality of an independent and impartial Special Prosecutor.

The jurisdiction of the Office of the Special Prosecutor is strictly provided for under the Act; it is more restrictive than most global anti-corruption agencies, with a limited number of offences that the Office may investigate. Members of the public who are still being misled to believe that the Office may investigate anything beyond the ten offences within its mandate, may start to lose trust. I wish them to understand that my limited jurisdiction means that the balance of criminal offences in the Criminal Offences Act that have not been apportioned to the Office and that deal with several felonies, have to be investigated by various other law and order enforcement agencies headed by among others, the Inspector General of Police, the Director-General CID, the Executive Director Economic and Organized Crime Office, the Director of the Bureau of National Investigations, the Director-General of the Ghana Immigration Service, The Executive Secretary for the Financial Intelligence Center, the National Security Coordinator, and the Director of Public Prosecutions. However, I state again I am committed to fully executing my mandate, and will continue to prosecute all cases under my jurisdiction to the fullest of the powers granted to the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

I have never been paid any money by any Government in my official capacity or because of my position as the Special Prosecutor as a judgment debt. Your intentional, malicious and deliberate defamatory words used to describe any payments to me of any part of the outstanding orders of the Court given on 4th September 2014 were understood by ordinary and right thinking members of the public to mean and you intended them to mean that the Government unlawfully had colluded with me in my capacity as the Special Prosecutor to dubiously pay me some money and other benefits resulting from Court orders.

The lies being bandied in the media should stop. I never consulted any person or political party before accepting my nomination to be put forward for approval as Special Prosecutor. Moreover, nobody is going to push or make me jump from the challenges of fighting public office corruption unless the Supreme Court declares the provisions of the Act under which I was appointed unconstitutional, I am impeached or I become convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the mutual promises and undertakings made with me at my nomination to fight the canker of corruption were not intended to be actualized in practice.

I wish Hon. Yaw Buaben Asamoa to understand that the Office of the Special Prosecutor is governed by statute and I am mandated to lead it in the achievement of that mandate. I do not need any direct or indirect instructions from any office holder of any political party like him. It is time for him and others like him from other political parties to stop confusing the fact that I was appointed by the President of the Republic to mean that it created a vested right in the political party which supported him to win the elections to instruct or direct me as the Special Prosecutor. I was appointed by the President in his capacity as the Executive Authority of Ghana under the 1992 Constitution and not as the flag-bearer of any political party. Should he think that I am talking too much and not doing my job the simple solution is for him to have me removed from office. Until then he should leave me alone to continue to exercise the independent duties of my office in accordance with my oath before Parliament and my oath at my appointment as the Special Prosecutor.

Who is really sleeping on the job when it comes to dealing with the canker of corruption? Heads of institutions wantonly disregard statutory requests made by the Office of the Special Prosecutor for information and production of documents to assist in the investigation of corruption and corruption-related offences. Public officers have been charged, arraigned before the High Court and their pleas taken only for them to return to their workplaces and work normally as though they have never been suspected of committing any corruption offences. Despite all the powers conferred on the Office of the Special Prosecutor by the law, when heads of institutions continually refuse or fail to support the fight against the canker of corruption by not vigorously applying regulations intended to aid the fight against corruption and other crimes, they ultimately undermine the work and impact of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

Members of Parliament who wish to gain exception from investigation and possible prosecution for suspected corruption offences will not succeed by applying bi-partisan pressure upon the Office of the Special Prosecutor. Alleging that there is a tall list for possible prosecution of parliamentarians only enables the creation of an artificial bi-partisan smoke screen for purposes of unduly delaying or running away from justice for those accused of the commission of corruption offences. The only way to get the first Special Prosecutor out of office in a bi-partisan manner is by impeachment or to allow the appropriate independent constitutional institution to do so.

Good religious bodies are the moral and ethical compass of social and political organizations and are better adapted to the preventive role of fighting corruption: they have over the years effectively served as corruption prevention social and political organizations in Ghana. Their contributions to the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor attest to their positive preventive role in the fight against corruption. The Office still needs the active support of good religious bodies not only in the prevention of corruption but also to protect its independence and give it the free room to treat corruption and corruption-related offences as purely criminal offences without fear or favour, affection or ill will. Good religious bodies cannot afford to let this last experiment in fighting corruption and corruption-related offences in Ghana be captured again by the political elite just for political point scoring. They have a spiritual and temporal obligation to ensure that the wellbeing of the nation is put above the greed and avarice of the political elite as good religious bodies have tenaciously demonstrated in Ghana over the years.

To correct recent factual misrepresentations in media and on WhatsApp, herewith my response to assure the public that while I occupy the role of Special Prosecutor, crime will always be treated as crime and no political party card can act as an insurance against investigating and/or prosecuting any offences that fall under my mandate under the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959).