The Chairman of the Ashanti regional branch of the National Peace Council Professor Seth Opuni Asiamah has slammed Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu over his lamentation on lack of adequate government support for his work.
Mr Amidu has claimed ministers have refused to offer him the kind of support he requires to be able to deliver on his mandate.
“The present situation where critical ministries and agencies have failed even with our limited constraints or refused to produce public records on demand to aid the office in critical investigations, offences running into millions of cedis, clearly demonstrates that there is divergence between the president’s vision and that of some of his appointees.
“You ask for information you can’t get it, you ask for docket, the docket cannot be produced. You ask a minister for a record, the record cannot be produced. How do you fight corruption when those appointed by the president who has a vision are not coordinating with the office of the special prosecutor to achieve his mandate? That is the challenge we have to face,” the anti-corruption crusader bemoaned at a National Audit Forum organised by the Ghana Audit Service in Accra.
However, Professor Opuni believes the complaints by the Special Prosecutor is an admission of failure.
“I do not agree that someone like him should be complaining that he is not getting the resources and therefore he is not working, for how many months has he been in office that he is not working; that is corruption. If I sat in my office and take salary and does not work, he will take me to task.
“Mr. Amidu appears to believe that somebody should lay things down for him to operate. He knows how the system operates; I do not expect that he thinks that everything should be put in place for him to be able to work. Having been put in office, it is now his job to ensure that things are put in place for him to work. We appointed him to fight corruption and we expect you to fight corruption. Bemoaning the situation and criticising government for not giving you resources is not on. Which ministry has enough resources to work? I think Mr. Amidu does not have any excuse. Seriously speaking, people are justified in saying that he has taking the job and he is not delivering and I will say that he is not delivering on the job that he has been given.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Gloria Akuffo has expressed surprise at the seeming frustration expressed by the Special Prosecutor over the level of cooperation he receives from the executive on his work.
“I have held meetings with him [Amidu] that requires sharing ideas about the goings on in the banking industry, we have shared ideas about how we should go about investigating and prosecuting it, there’s no time that he had sought to speak with me that I haven’t spoken to him. There’s no breakdown,” she told Starr News on Thursday
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5fm
