Committee invites Martin Amidu over Special Prosecutor Bill

The Chairman of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of Parliament, Ben Abdallah, has said that they have invited former Attorney General, Martin Amidu to appear before to committee to present his recommendations on the office of the Special Prosecutor Bill 2017.

According to him, the move is part of efforts by the committee to receive inputs from the general public on the subject before it is passed into law.

“This Bill is not final, we are yet to receive inputs from the general public. Martin Amidu himself who has brought out his perspective on the seeming inconsistency of the bill has been written to and we are hoping that Martin Amidu will heed to the invitation of the committee and appear before the committee to share his thoughts,” Ben Abdallah said on Eyewitness News on Wednesday.

“If in the wisdom of the plenary, Martin Amidu’s position so far as the law is concerned is a sound position, the plenary will take same on board,” he added.

According to him, although there is a general sense of urgency and expectation that the committee works speedily on the Bill, it is being minded to work diligently to ensure that it does not err in its work.

Martin Amidu, in what he described as a critique of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill questioned why there’s a clause that seeks to limit the Special Prosecutor to specific crimes.

Martin Amidu noted that the success of the office would be largely dependent on the integrity of the President to ensure the office works without any interference and gets the necessary resources to deliver on its mandate without fear or favour.

But reacting to the issues raised by Martin Amidu, Ben Abdallah said although the powers of the Special Prosecutor must not be limited, he believes that the Office of the Special Prosecutor must not be compelled to chase every act of corruption but be guided by the quantum of the acts of corruption.

“Every corruption is corruption, but if we don’t circumscribe the jurisdiction of the office of the Special Prosecutor with the respect to kinds of corruption that the Special Prosecutor can deal with, we may have a situation where the special Prosecutor is compelled to deal with any kind of corruption at all no matter the quantum of the money allegedly embezzled, ” Ben Abdallah said.

The Special Prosecutor office is to enable the government deal with issues of corruption, especially among state officials.

It was one of the major promises made by President Akufo-Addo as part of his plans to deal with corruption in government.

Source: citifmonline.com