Former Majority Leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has criticised the Office of the Special Prosecutor over its approach to investigating alleged vote buying during the New Patriotic Party’s recent primaries.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on Joy News’ AM Show, he questioned the timing of the Special Prosecutor’s announcement that it was investigating claims of vote buying involving both the NPP and the NDC.
When asked about the probe, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said he was uncomfortable with what he described as an attempt to “equalise” the situation.
“I don’t like this kind of equalisation. The OSP should be a man; he should be principled,” he said.
He said that if the Office of the Special Prosecutor had concerns about what happened during the election, it should have acted immediately.
“We had this election a week ago. So if anything untoward happened, you should have immediately come out to say that these are some of the observations I have come up with and want to investigate it,” he stated.
According to him, waiting until allegations surfaced in relation to another political party before announcing investigations into both created the wrong impression.
“You wait until it happens in the NDC and you say, okay, I’m going to hold NDC responsible and at the same time I’m going to do this. What is that?” he asked.
“Are we in a regime of equalisation? Or do you think that if you act only on the NDC, questions may come that we heard this also went on in the NPP, so why aren’t you acting?”
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu clarified that he was not against investigations where wrongdoing was suspected.
“I’m not saying that if anything went wrong, it shouldn’t be investigated. It may be wrong,” he said.
However, he maintained that the Special Prosecutor must show clear independence and decisiveness.
“It should show greater independence and determination. Rather than wait for something to happen and then say before I dive into this, I’m told this also happened, so I want to do the two together. It’s not the best,” he added.
Read also: OSP probes NPP Presidential, NDC Ayawaso East parliamentary primaries over vote buying allegations
