Corruption fight needs innovation – Prof H. Prempeh

Executive Director for the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) says the country must embrace more innovative ways of tackling corruption and abandon the old ways, which have not been fruitful.

Prof. Prempeh, who chaired the Constitutional Review Committee set up by President John Mahama to consult and propose constitutional reforms, warned that failure to adopt fresh approaches would leave Ghana’s key anti-corruption institutions ineffective.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Monday, December 8, he stressed that Ghana must be ready to adopt globally recognised tools such as lifestyle audits and unexplained wealth laws if the country hopes to tackle corruption meaningfully.

“This office [OSP] is new. We are not used to it… There are many things down the line that we could do to fight corruption that we are not used to and that we are resistant to, including lifestyle audit, unexplained wealth laws. This is where the trend is globally,” he said. “There is no other way, given the evolving technologies and everything, to fight corruption the way we are doing it.”

His remarks come amid a national debate on the future of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP). Private legal practitioner Ace Ankomah who was also on the show, proposed structural reforms aimed at strengthening the independence and effectiveness of criminal prosecutions in Ghana.

Ankomah argued that the creation of the OSP was itself a tacit admission that the Attorney-General’s Office had struggled to handle corruption and economic crime cases effectively.

He cited political interference and the frequent use of nolle prosequi by successive governments to discontinue cases and suggested merging the OSP, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), and the criminal prosecution wing of the Attorney-General’s Office into an independent National Prosecutions Authority.

According to Ankomah, such an authority should enjoy judicial-level independence, secure tenure, and financial autonomy to shield it from political influence.

Prof. Prempeh noted that Ghana’s entrenched constitutional and institutional arrangements around prosecutions make reform necessary.

“If we still want to remain in the same old mode, that this is the AG’s function, this is constitutional, you can’t fight it. You just have to innovate around this problem,” he said.

He added that a constitutional solution may now be required to resolve ongoing tensions surrounding anti-corruption prosecutions. “If we don’t, we will start litigating around it. The office will disappear.”

Parliament has already waded into the debate with key figures such as Speaker Alban Bagbin and Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, calling for a second look at the office established during the erstwhile Akufo-Addo administration.

The Attorney-General and the president have yet to weigh in on the matter, even as the government continues to commit financially to the anti-corruption office.