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The spread of the COVID-19 disease and its attendant pressure on the economic resources of Ghana has called for the deployment of every possible means to fight it and protect lives. During this challenging period, one state entity which has been well resourced and proved redundant to the economic realities of the people of Ghana is the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
The purpose of that Office is to bring matters of corruption and corruption related conflicts to conclusive resolution using the law as its tool. In the wisdom of Parliament, by the time the OSP achieves its purpose in each matter it undertakes to prosecute, there should be no doubt in public minds that an authoritative conclusion has been reached in a fair, balanced and non-controversial way.
However, since its inception, the Office has been a sore point of public controversy. Often, the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office is either engaged in conflicts of one form or another, issuing endless epistles rather than seeking to be productive in the delivery of justice.
Indeed, many have had good reason to accuse the OSP of being a tool for hounding political figures who are not aligned to the current government. The choices of matters so far pursued by the Office lend credence to that suspicion. It is not uncommon for members of the public to predict what it will pursue and what it will avoid. Political, and indeed partisan convenience, underpin which direction it takes, according to its critics.
There is therefore now no doubt that the Office of the Special Prosecutor has become truly redundant to the needs of the people of Ghana as far as Justice delivery is concerned.
In the light of its redundancy and the urgent need for Ghana to deploy all resources to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, it makes every strategic economic sense to put the national resources controlled by the Special Prosecutor to use in fighting the Virus. Specifically, since our government has been struggling to find, and indeed co-opt communities to make available, school buildings for use as Isolation Centres, the office buildings allotted to the OSP which remain unused to date, should be an easy and practical resort.
Government must as a matter of National Urgency make all OSP premises available to the Ministry of Health which requires them as Isolation Centres.
Let it not be said in the anals of history that in this dire circumstances of our country, Ghana was thirsty in the abundance of water. The OSP has abundant premises which belong to the state. Let them be put to use for the sake of Ghanaians.
By Ibrahim Yahaya – Baatsonaa | The views expressed by the writer are solely his and do not represent the position of Daily Mail GH
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