US-based Ghanaian lawyer Prof. Stephen Kwaku Asare has reacted to the call for the scrapping of the Office of the Special Prosecutor, urging Parliament not to repeal the law but rather strengthen it.
According to him in the Facebook post, “Repealing the OSP Act shows fear, not reform. Strengthening the OSP shows seriousness.”
Also Read
His comments follow calls by many Ghanaians, including Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin, Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga, and former Speaker of Parliament Prof. Mike Oquaye, for the Office to be abolished, as they deem it wasteful.
Read Prof. Asare’s full article:
There is a sudden chorus calling for the repeal of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act because the OSP is “not producing rapid results.”
This is the latest episode in our national habit of diagnosing the wrong disease and prescribing the wrong medicine.
Getting rid of the OSP because it struggles is like burning down the hospital because there are sick people inside.
Let’s step back and remind ourselves why the OSP exists in the first place.
I. Why the OSP Matters and Why It Must Be Strengthened
1. Sixty years of institutional failure: For six decades, the AG’s Department has proven either unable or unwilling to confront political corruption and elite looting. This is not opinion. It is history.
2. Ordinary policing cannot fight elite corruption: You cannot fight political corruption and looting with the same tools used to arrest mid-level white-collar criminals.
High-level corruption requires specialised intelligence and forensic capacity. It requires independence from the political elites. The OSP is the only institution designed for this mission.
3. Without a strong OSP, our anti-corruption architecture collapses: A weakened or abolished OSP guarantees political impunity, collapse of public trust, a weakened ORAL, failure to recover stolen assets, and reputational decline internationally. It puts us back where we were when we decided it’s time for an OSP law.
4. A strong OSP pays for itself many times over: Corruption costs us billions. Strengthening the OSP costs a fraction of that. This is the easiest investment decision the government will ever face.
So yes, the OSP must be improved. But those asking for repeal are attacking the wrong target.
The OSP struggles, no doubt. But not because the concept is bad or flawed, but because we have denied it the tools to succeed.
II. Why the OSP Struggles — The Top Ten Reasons
Let’s stop pretending the OSP is struggling on its own. It is struggling because we set it up to struggle. Many are invested in its failure.
Here are the top ten reasons why the OSP struggles.
1. The courts are not designed for elite economic crime:
Endless adjournments. Rotating judges. Slow dockets. Corruption cases die quietly in this system.
2. The OSP is denied critical investigative tools:
No lifestyle audits for politically exposed persons. No automatic access to asset declarations. These are basic tools in Kenya and Malawi — but not here.
3. Weak witness protection and whistleblower systems:
People know who is looting, but they are afraid to talk. This is a country where we could not reliably find who said tweaaa. Imagine testifying against political financiers.
4. Political heat with zero political cover:
The OSP is told to take on political giants but is denied tools, routinely accused of witch-hunting, pressured to act and pressured not to act.
5. No independent budget spine:
The OSP depends financially on the Ministry of Finance — sometimes the very institution under investigation. Even appropriations are not timely and fully released. A structural absurdity.
6. Endless litigation traps and procedural fog:
Every OSP action triggers injunctions, certiorari, jurisdiction challenges, human rights suits. Half its time is spent fighting for permission to work.
7. People demand rapid results from a justice system engineered for delay:
The public wants speed, and they are right. But speed is impossible in a system deliberately calibrated for slowness.
8. The statutory jurisdiction is too narrow and confusing:
Corruption hides behind tax evasion, money laundering, procurement games, illicit enrichment, but the OSP’s mandate is too narrow to match the real world.
9. We do not treat looting as a serious crime:
Steal a phone and you may face mob justice. Steal millions and you are defended on radio as a victim of politics.
Looting looks abstract to too many Ghanaians.
10. The OSP depends on the very agencies it investigates:
It must beg for documents from ministries, GRA, PPA, the Auditor-General, EOCO, etc. Cooperation is slow or nonexistent. This would cripple any institution.
To sum up, the OSP is not only fighting corruption. It is fighting to be allowed to fight corruption.
III. How to Strengthen the OSP
We don’t need guesswork. Each problem points directly to its solution.
1. Create specialised anti-corruption courts with permanently assigned judges who understand financial crimes, strict case timelines, no endless adjournments, with a mandatory 9–12 month case resolution
Elite crime requires elite courts.
2. Give the OSP the investigative tools it needs
•Lifestyle audits of politically exposed persons
•Automatic access to assets declarations
•Authority to pursue illicit enrichment patterns
These are basic necessities, not luxuries. I should add that the lifestyle audit will come with the shift in the evidential burden once it’s established that you own a million-dollar Cantoments home on your public salary.
3. Build a modern witness protection and whistleblower system
Witnesses must be protected through relocation, anonymity, and legal immunity, supported by secure reporting platforms and backed by criminal sanctions for retaliation.
Without protection, evidence never surfaces. That’s why we still don’t know who said tweaaa!
4. Give the OSP political insulation and cover
Build iron walls around the OSP: the President must not call him, no minister must whisper to him, and no party should expect favours—his only master must be the law.
If any political actor interferes with the Special Prosecutor’s work, that interference should itself be a removable offence.
5. Provide an independent budget spine
The OSP’s budget must be charged directly to the Consolidated Fund, insulated from Ministry of Finance discretion or delays, and supported by multi-year funding guarantees.
You cannot starve an agency and then blame it for being weak.
6. Fix procedural fog and close litigation traps
Clarify the OSP’s arrest and detention powers, spell out freezing and seizure procedures, define what counts as corruption-related offences, and set clear court review timelines—reduce ambiguity, reduce obstruction.
Grant the OSP functional immunity to protect the office from lawsuits over good-faith official actions, so corruption suspects cannot cripple the office through harassment litigation.
7. Accelerate justice system processes for corruption cases
The public wants speed—and because sovereignty resides in them, we must deliver it through e-filing and digital court records, time limits on interlocutory appeals, priority status for corruption cases, and sanctions for unreasonable adjournments.
8. Broaden and clarify the OSP’s jurisdiction
Amend Act 959 to cover economic crimes by politically exposed persons, tax evasion tied to unexplained wealth, money-laundering networks, and conflicts of interest or abuse of office. The OSP must be empowered to follow corruption where it actually hides.
9. Treat looting as a national security threat, not a political quarrel
Changing the culture requires public awareness of corruption’s cost, mandatory asset recovery, open reporting of recovered funds, and courts that treat corruption as a serious offence.
10. Break the OSP’s dependence on uncooperative agencies
Give the OSP operational autonomy by imposing statutory deadlines on GRA, BoG, PPA, FIC, the Auditor-General, and the Registrar of Companies, enforcing sanctions for non-compliance, granting direct access to procurement and financial databases, and empowering it to issue enforceable production notices. The OSP requires operational autonomy go function.
IV. GOGO’s Verdict
The OSP is not a failed idea. It is a good idea crippled by poor implementation.
We built an institution for a gunfight and handed it a whistle. The answer is not to take the whistle away.
The answer is to finally give it:
• clear jurisdiction,
• financial independence,
• specialised courts,
• forensic capacity, and
• political protection.
Repealing the OSP Act shows fear, not reform. Strengthening the OSP shows seriousness.
The question before us is simple: Do we want to fight corruption, or are we ready to make it a normal, legitimate branch of government activity?
PS: Yɛde post no bɛto hɔ. Yɛnyɛ comprehension consultants.
Da Yie!
