The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has indicated that the issue of ‘contract for sale’ has been the subject of ongoing investigations as part of a report brought to the attention of the OSP by the Auditor General’s Department several months ago.
It noted that
a correspondence between the OSP and the presidency suggested that the recently
publicised exposé by Manasseh Azure Awuni, a journalist which indicted Adjenim
Boateng Adjei, the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority,
resulting in his suspension, had been a subject of investigation by the Auditor
General’s Department for several months.
Although
Martin Amidu, the Special Prosecutor had stated in the letter to the presidency
that he had called Mr Awuni to congratulate him on the work done, he pointed
out that, “My office has independently gathered intelligence on the matter
and has been provided with facts and materials from other sources, particularly
from the Audit Service and the Registrar of Companies.”
He also discounted media publications that his
invitation to the suspended Mr Adjei to appear for questioning on August 29,
2019 was due to the instruction from the presidency but the invitation was done
pursuant to an independent investigation conducted prior to the airing of the
documentary by Mr Awuni.
In another correspondence from the Office of the
Special Prosecutor, he praised the presidency for suspending with immediate effect,
Mr Adjei but questioned why a similar action was not taken in other cases of
corruption it was investigating.
“The fight against corruption must not be
“halfhearted, selective or ad hoc” but must rather be unequivocal and
non-discriminatory, the trial of some five public officers including an
appointee of the government for alleged procurement malpractice in the Bawku
Municipal Assembly and questioned why none of them was suspended or interdicted
as it happened in the “contract for sale” case.
“This situation creates the impression that the government does not “view corruption as a high-risk enterprise,” Mr Amidu said. -citinewsroom.com
