Kissi Agyebeng declares ‘rebirth’ of OSP, hits back at calls for its abolition

Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng has declared the “rebirth” of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), strongly pushing back against sustained criticism and calls for the institution to be abolished.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, August 26, Mr Agyebeng said the OSP had come under repeated attacks but remained resilient in pursuing its mandate to fight corruption.

“It is always the OSP. This is no way of building a nation. Through it all, the office has held high and been irrepressible and today I announce the rebirth of the OSP,” he declared.

Mr Agyebeng said the OSP’s own assessment of the criticisms directed at it showed that some of the attacks were linked to the institution’s independent investigative and prosecutorial powers.

“Our introspection leads us to conclude rather startlingly… that the coordinated attacks against the OSP to shut it down or at least render it ineffectual are largely traceable to what the office stands for and its powers and functions,” he said.

He identified the OSP’s ability to independently determine who to investigate and which cases to pursue within its mandate as a particular source of discomfort for some public officers.

“These functions and powers of the OSP represent such a spectrum of discomfort among some public officers that they would rather see the office abolished,” he stated.

‘We acknowledge that we have made mistakes’

The Special Prosecutor acknowledged that the OSP was not without flaws and had made mistakes in the course of its work.

“We acknowledge that we have made mistakes. We do not claim to be a perfect institution,” he said.

However, he argued that such mistakes were not sufficient grounds to dismantle an institution established to fight corruption.

“If the basis of collapsing a public agency is that the entity in question committed common mistakes in the ordinary course of its work, then every public institution in Ghana should immediately be shut down,” he argued.

Mr Agyebeng also took issue with attacks which he said were motivated by personal dislike for the current leadership of the OSP.

“I state with extreme reluctance that some of the attacks intended at abolishing the OSP or dimming its light stem from personal dislike against the occupant of the seat of the Special Prosecutor and the Operational Directors,” he said.

He said there was no evidence that the officials targeted had engaged in “obnoxious or untoward conduct” that would justify attempts to weaken the institution.

“To drive down a public institution set up to fight corruption and to actively call for its abolition out of personal dislike for the principal office holders, not arising from any unbecoming conduct but a preference for other persons to occupy such positions is the antithesis of development,” he stated.

OSP challenges critics to assess its record

Mr Agyebeng rejected claims that the OSP had failed to deliver or was ineffective, challenging critics to assess its performance against comparable institutions while considering differences in mandate, resources, the complexity of cases and legal constraints.

“To those who hold the view that the OSP has achieved nothing and that it should be scrapped, your claims are testable. To those who say the OSP is ineffective, your claims are testable,” he said.

“You are respectfully invited to check the statistics of our performance and benchmark them against your preferred institution, taking into account mandates, year of establishment, resources, complexity of cases, and legal constraints.”

He maintained that such an assessment would show that the OSP had performed creditably.

“If you do this dispassionately, it would occur to you that the OSP has performed creditably,” he said.

Mr Agyebeng further said the Office remained open about its work and had not sought to shield its performance from public scrutiny.

“Our performance is neither shrouded in secrecy nor obscurity. We pride ourselves with openness,” he stated.