President John Mahama has called on the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to accelerate its investigations and demonstrate stronger results in the fight against corruption.
He made the appeal during a courtesy call by the National Peace Council at the Jubilee House on Wednesday, December 10, stating that the OSP must justify its relevance by delivering timely and decisive action.
According to President Mahama, while public pressure for results is understandable, the newly reconstituted office must be given space to work, supported by renewed urgency.
“I’ll just urge the OSP to speed up some of these investigations and show people that the office is still very relevant,” he said.
The President stressed that calls for the abolition of the OSP are premature, especially given its unique mandate.
“Recently, there’s been some controversy with the Office of the Special Prosecutor. I think it’s premature to call for the closure of that office,” he noted.
“The unique thing about that office is that it is the only anti-corruption agency that has prosecutorial powers to prosecute cases without going through the Attorney General.”
He explained that this independence is crucial because the Attorney General, as a political appointee, is often perceived as reluctant to prosecute members of the government.
“People have mistrust for the Attorney General… they believe the Attorney General will be very reluctant to prosecute his own. But if there’s an independent office like the OSP, it won’t matter who you are,” President Mahama said.
He added that the office enjoys security of tenure and the legal authority to pursue wrongdoing across political divides:
“Whether you’re a member of government, a former government, or anybody who has misappropriated public funds, they have the lawyers behind them to prosecute you.”
President Mahama’s remarks follow recent comments by Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga, who argued on the floor of Parliament that the OSP has failed to deliver meaningful results eight years after its creation and should therefore be abolished.
At that same sitting, Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin expressed concern over the continued allocation of significant budgetary resources to the OSP despite its performance gaps, describing the expenditure as increasingly difficult to justify.
President Mahama, however, believes the institution still holds strategic importance in Ghana’s anti-corruption framework and must be strengthened rather than scrapped.
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