The Member of Parliament for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, has expressed strong reservations over a High Court directive requiring the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to hand over all ongoing prosecutions to the Attorney-General’s Department pending the determination of a case before the court.
Reacting to the ruling in a social media post, the legislator questioned the implications of the decision on Ghana’s anti-corruption drive.
“I disagree with this decision. How does this support our anti-corruption campaign? What does it add to it? Politics and governance. May God help us. We all want the best for Ghana,” he wrote.
Mr Sosu was reacting to a cryptic message posted by H Kwasi Prempeh, a respected member of civil society who wrote the following after the ruling:
Mr. Special Prosecutor, please don’t appeal, and don’t resign o; don’t! Don’t even fight it in the media. Relax koraa. You and your staff should just sit tight and collect your pay and perks and spend your budget as planned, ok. That, too, counts as public service in Ghana. Don’t kill ‘yaself’ over this! Country broke or no broke, we all dey inside–unequally, of course!
The court’s directive effectively places a temporary halt to the prosecutorial independence of the OSP, requiring that all cases currently being handled by the office be transferred to the Attorney-General until the legal challenge is resolved.
While details of the substantive case before the court remain under consideration, the ruling has sparked debate among legal and governance stakeholders about its potential impact on the fight against corruption.
The OSP, established as a specialised anti-corruption body, has been at the forefront of investigating and prosecuting corruption-related offences, particularly those involving public officials.
The temporary reassignment of its prosecutorial mandate is therefore expected to have significant implications for ongoing and future cases.
