Modern Ghana: Ghana: Friday, January 05, 2018.
The Office of
the Special Prosecutor will struggle without the Right to Information (RTI)
bill, General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC),
Johnson Asiedu Nketia has said.
According to
him, without the bill, the Special Prosecutor will find it difficult retrieving
information especially from government offices.
“The most
important bill, even more important than the Special Prosecutor office is the
freedom to information Act. If someone comes with a complaint on a bloated
price of a project, it will be difficult to crosscheck because if you request
for it from government offices, they will tell you they can't because of
official secrecy. If you don't bring the freedom of information Act, and ask
the special prosecutor to do its job, you are going to complicate things for
him,” he said.
President
Akufo-Addo on Tuesday, January 2, 2017, appended his signature to the bill
setting up the Special Prosecutor office after it was approved by Parliament in
November 2017.
The Office of
the Special Prosecutor marks the fulfillment of a major campaign promise of
Nana Akufo-Addo in the run-up to the 2016 elections aimed at fighting
corruption.
But members
of the opposition NDC have complained that the office cannot be independent
since the Special Prosecutor will certainly be appointed by the President.
Speaking on
Ekosii sen, a late afternoon political talk show on Accra based radio station,
Asempa FM, Asiedu Nketia charged government to ensure that the Special
Prosecutor is made as independent as possible.
“The Attorney
General is an NPP member that is why she cannot prosecute her own party
members. And if it were NDC in power, the Attorney General will have similar
constraint. That is why the NPP government found it necessary to create that
office. So the person to occupy that position should be very independent in a
way that she or he can even arrest their own party members. It is a very
difficult thing to do but it has to be done,” he added.
“If they
appoint another NPP lawyer to that high office, then its work will be a work in
futility. The greater problem at hand is to appoint a person who can prosecute
both NDC and NPP corrupt officials,” Asiedu Nketia noted.
About RTI
bill
The RTI bill
has been in legislation for well over a decade since successive governments
have failed to implement it despite several assurances.
Although the
New Patriotic Party government has promised to pass it into law, it is unclear
how soon that would be.
.JPG)
.JPG)
