Prominent member of the incumbent NPP and close relation to President Akufo-Addo has revealed that the office of the Special Prosecutor obtained the highest budgetary allocation from the 2019 budget under the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) section.
Mr. Gabby Asare Otchere posted on his Facebook wall that in the area of the fight against corruption, Mr. Martin Amidu’s office was given a total of GHS 180,160,231 followed by the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Department with GHS 135,983,714.
The Commission for Human Rights and Justice was the third-highest acquiring GHS 31,948,070.
The leading member of the Akufo-Addo government did not give any breakdown or explanation to suggest whether the mentioned institution has received the allocated funds from the budget.
His outing, however, comes at a time when the Special Prosecutor has appeared on a platform to lament on the challenges impeding his outfit from fully functioning as expected.
According to the head of the independent prosecution unit, among other things, his outfit is heavily under-resourced, thus, causing him to function at a snail pace.
Martin Amidu has come under heavy criticism by stakeholders and Ghanaians as a whole over his failure to deliver his mandate by successfully prosecuting corrupt officials, a year and half two into office.
Parliament passed a law in November 2017 to establish the Office of the Special Prosecutor as a specialized and independent entity to investigate specific cases of corruption, involving public officers and individuals in the private sector implicated but Ghanaians are yet to see this come into fruition.
Gabby Otchere Darko