OSP DESPERATELY AVOIDING WATERLOO OF UNLAWFUL CECILIA ABENA DAPAAH ARREST
The changing narrative shows that the corrupt and fraudulent William Kissi Agyebeng, the modern day John Ackah Blay-Miezah of our era, has assessed the inevitability of an impending waterloo in the court cases he had brought against Cecilia Abena Dapaah and the human rights and freedoms relief for injunction she brought against him for the infringement of her constitutional rights and is looking for a lifesaving escape through the side door.
LET’S HEAR JUDICIAL SERVICE ON KISSI AGYEBENG’S JOINT STATEMENT BEFORE RUSHING TO JUDGMENT
The original joint statement must definitely have been signed by officers from the two public institutions which the public is entitled to be provided with. I smell a psychological operation from the rogue OSP in the issuance of the joint statement to coincide with the publication of my article on 27 December 2023 about breaches of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017, (Act 959) pervasively taking place in the OSP. Let the Judicial Service be heard on this alleged joint statement before rushing to unfounded judgment against it. Truth shall stand!
SP BLACKMAILS GOVERNMENT; TOUTS PROSECUTIONS OF FORMER GOVERNMENT APPOINTEES
The facts, information and intelligence, and the available evidence demonstrate that the Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng, is so desperate to protect the pervasive and endemic mismanagement, the culture of corruption, massive staff recruitment malpractices, and public procurement malpractices within the OSP by resorting to blackmailing the government with publications of former government appointees he is prosecuting to rally public support against possible impeachment for misconduct.
SPECIAL PROSECUTOR ACTED UNLAWFULLY IN CHARGING CECILIA DAPAAH FOR REFUSAL TO DECLARE ASSETS
Any citizen upon whom the Special Prosecutor purports to give notice under regulation 20 of L.I. 2374 who has not been charged with any one of the eleven (11) specified corruption or corruption-related offences would commit no offence under Section 69(1) of Act 959 for non-compliance because the demand pursuant to regulation 20 of L. I. 2374 would have been made by the Special Prosecutor unlawfully. The Special Prosecutor took no valid statement on caution from Cecilia Dapaah or charged her with any specified offence.
SPECIAL PROSECUTOR CONS PUBLIC ABOUT POWER TO DEFREEZE BANK ACCOUNTS AND ASSETS
The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, is running away with his tail between his legs from the adversarial process of the High Court even in matters which are sub judice. The proper forum for a competent and an experienced Special Prosecutor to state why the five bank accounts should be de-frozen when the matter is already in court, is before the High Court and not in the media to con the unsuspecting public.
DANGER IN KISSI AGYEBENG’S OSP PICKING CASES IN BIASED MANNER
A dragnet for “everyone and every person” is not law enforcement under the 1992 Constitution. It is witch hunting Agyebengism, pure and simple. When tyrannical investigators and prosecutors in the mold of William Kissi Agyebeng are let alone, they deploy empty rhetorical performances, which signify nothing, to confuse the public. The emerging tyranny of William Kissi Agyebeng activates the constitutional and patriotic duty of citizens to respond to those abuses and stop them in their tracks before they destroy this country with a new McCarthyism.
DID THE SP INHERITED 9 EMPLOYEES FROM MARTIN AMIDU?
Did Mr. Kissi Agyebeng say that he inherited nine employees from me, Martin Amidu, when he knows so well from the official records contained in my handing over notes and my budget submissions to the Ministry of Finance for the 2021 Budget that the Office had more staff working in it as at the time I resigned from the Office? All the issues allegedly raised by him are dealt with in my handing over notes and may be of some use to him if he has not seen or read them already…
THE DISQUALIFICATION OF MARTIN AMIDU AS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
Commonsense should have pointed Mr. Dame to the fact that a declaration of nullity ab initio by the Court would have been a disaster for the calculating “Puppet Master”, the President, Nana Akufo Addo, and “The Family” from which the President would never have recovered his loss of face and not for me or my then deputy. The many appointed older members and associates of “The Family” who are still at post facilitating its corruption would have been out of office. I welcome Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame’s pomposity and arrogance because they urge me on to continue criticizing him as a customary Ghanaian parent to change for his own betterment.
THE NOMINATION OF THE ANTI-CORRUPTION REPRESENTATIVE MUST NOT BE RIGGED AGAIN
The public must be reminded that the three-year mandate of the Governing Board of the Office of the Special Prosecutor expired at midnight on 11th July 2021 without word from the President or the Office to the public. Now that the three-year tenure of the Governing Board of the Office has expired, patriotic Ghanaians need to be alert and support the Anti-Corruption Civil Society Organizations to ensure that this time round their chosen representative is sworn-in by the President when the new Board comes to be inaugurated.
THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN AGYAPA AND BIRTH OF THE KABUKI DANCE
This article demonstrates what consequences await any appointee of this Government who takes literally, as I did, the President’s rhetoric of “be citizens’ and not “spectators”. The Agyapa Royalties Transactions anti-corruption analysis and assessment report was done professionally without fear or favour, affection, or ill will. When our political rhetorical President saw that the report implicated him, his family, and friends in suspected corruption activities, an official government anti-corruption assessment supported by law became an instrument of political damage control for his government. The President not only sought to interfere for me to shelve the report from the public, but…
THE PROBLEM WITH GOVERNING BOARDS
The Office of the Special Prosecutor has been in a vulnerable state since the assumption of the duties of the Special Prosecutor by the Deputy Special Prosecutor by operation of law. Apart from Board meetings held in November and December 2020 no Board meeting to the best of my knowledge has been held since the Chief of Staff’s “very urgent” directives issued on 12/012021. Crucial decisions affecting an independent anti-corruption agency are being taken singlehandedly by one person on instructions even after being passed over for nomination for consideration and possible approval. A new Special Prosecutor would thus have been undermined….
WHO HANDLED THE DOUBLE SALARY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION?
My resignation as the first Special Prosecutor was the result of the endemic attitude of President, Nana Akufo Addo’s penchant to usurp the constitutional authority of investigators and prosecutors in criminal justice administration as he tried to do in the Agyapa Royalties Transaction Anti-Corruption Risk Assessment Report implicating him. It had nothing to do with the Members of Parliament double salaries which I never saw nor handled during my tenure. The President’s responses to the media on 13th December 2018 is evidence that this President determines who may be prosecuted for crime and not the Attorney General or Special Prosecutor…
DO NOT DEFAME MARTIN AMIDU WITH PROPAGANDA
By all means let anybody root for his or her preferred Special Prosecutor as an insurance against prosecution for corruption in Government but leave me out of the propaganda. I am honouring an undertaking by my silence in not commenting on public affairs. Stop tempting me to speak by the defaming propaganda against me. It will not be in anyone’s interest.
MARTIN AMIDU’S LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT AFTER RESIGNATION AS SP
The Government may wish to invite a trusted and friendly anti-corruption country such as Singapore or the United Kingdom or the United States or Denmark to send independent anti-corruption officers to replicate my analysis and anti-corruption assessment work giving rise to the report using the same source letters and documents. I am confident professionally and ethically that they will arrive at the same anti-corruption assessments contained in the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions report. I explained this to my dear friend the Minister of Finance when he visited me as early as 5:36 am on the morning of 22nd October 2020 in the company of a mutual friend. I pray that the President takes up this challenge so that the concerted effort he is leading to throw me under the bus and bringing my reputation into disrepute for acting professionally in the Agyapa anti-corruption assessment report in which the President has a personal interest comes to an end.
ALLEGATIONS OF BRIBERY OF GHANAIAN OFFICIALS IN AIRCRAFT DEAL
On Monday, 3rd February 2020, the Office of the Special Prosecutor received from the Secretary to the President a letter referring allegations of bribery of Ghanaian Officials in the aircraft deal, as disclosed in litigation taking place in the UK and USA. The Special Prosecutor has determined that the said referral and deferred prosecution agreements and judgments accompanying them raise reasonable suspicion of the commission of corruption and corruption-related offences of bribery of public officers and the use of public office by public officers for private profit. A preliminary investigation has accordingly been opened. The Office of the Special Prosecutor appeals to the public not to speculate or politicize the disclosures so as to allow this Office to treat these as suspected crimes simpliciter, pending the conclusion of the investigation.
PARLIAMENT SOUGHT TO INTERFERE WITH THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE SP
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.
THE ROLE OF THE OSP IN PROTECTING NATIONAL RESOURCES
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 SP HAS NO JURISDICTION TO INVESTIGATE FINANCIAL & ECONOMIC CRIMES
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.
DEMAND FOR UNQUALIFIED APOLOGY FOR DEFAMATORY PUBLICATIONS
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.
STOP THE HALLUCINATION AND POLITICAL LIES
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.