US based legal practitioner and accounting Professor, Kwaku Asare popularly known as Kwaku Azar has stated that the country must abide by the constitutional requirement on the age of retirement and revoke Martin Amidu’s nomination as the Special Prosecutor.
According to Prof. Asare “As long as we have a constitution, we will have to abide by its provisions. If we are not okay with some of its provisions, then we will have to amend the constitution.”
Article 199(1) of the constitution states that “A public officer shall, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, retire from the public service on attaining the age of sixty years.”
A former deputy Attorney General Dr. Dominic Ayine on Monday filed a suit at the Supreme Court arguing that Mr. Amidu is too old to hold the position of Special Prosecutor.
He wants the apex court of the land to annul the appointment because “…by reason of his age, (66 years), Mr. Martin Alamisi Burns Kaiser Amidu is not qualified or eligible to be approved by Parliament as the Special Prosecutor under Section 13(3) of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2018 (Act 959).”
The First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu has, however, stated that the age of Amidu cannot disqualify him from becoming the Special Prosecutor.
Mr. Amidu, the nicknamed ‘Citizen Vigilante’ for his no-nonsense stance and campaign against corruption particularly during the NDC administration is expected to face Parliament’s Appointments Committee today, Tuesday February 13.
Speaking on the Morning Starr Tuesday, Prof. Asare stated that the Attorney General may have missed the age of Mr. Amidu because the AG’s department is under-resourced and over-worked.
“The Attorney General may have missed the age requirement because they are completely under-resourced, under staffed and over-worked…if the Attorney General had more lawyers, missing the age of a Special Prosecutor wouldn’t have happened.
“We have to get to the roots of issues. You must have people who are actually paying attention to details before someone is appointed but as I said, the Attorney General’s Office does not have enough lawyers.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
