Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, 2016 flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has explained that his decision to set up an office of a Special Prosecutor, which would be insulated from the Executive arm of government, when voted as president in the 2016 general election, is to ensure that as a nation, we come up with an office that will be dedicated to the fight against corruption.
According to him, the office so established will be given a permanent feature to enable it focus exclusively on the fight against corruption in the country.
“As things stand, CHRAJ would appear to be the only nominally independent agency of state that has a mandate for fighting corruption.
“All the other agencies are a function of the Executive. However, CHRAJ is also burdened by its other mandates: human rights and administrative justice and is plagued by the lack of direct prosecutorial powers,” he said.
In a reaction to an editorial published by The Chronicle in the Wednesday, July 23 edition of the paper, Nana Addo said the office of the Special Prosecutor would be its own investigative powers as well as being authorized by statute to investigate and prosecute corruption cases without recourse to the Executive.
He said the office would be insulated from the Executive and given its independence by ensuring that the Special Prosecutor can only be appointed and removed through a rigorous statutory process, involving a special majority of 2/3 or preferably ¾ of parliament.
He continued that this is to take away the anti-corruption mandate of CHRAJ, given the fact that apart from the fact that the human rights body lacked the prosecutorial powers to investigate corruption cases.
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