He has spent years chasing corruption. Now, he says, the politicians are chasing him back.
In a striking address that laid bare the fragile reality of Ghana’s anti-corruption architecture, Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng stood before the National Dialogue on the Focus of the Special Prosecutor on Tuesday, March 31, and delivered a candid warning: the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) is under siege, not from criminals, but from the political class it was created to hold accountable.
Speaking with unusual candour, Mr. Agyebeng revealed that the OSP’s continued existence owes much to the goodwill of President John Dramani Mahama, at a time when a bill reportedly drafted by the Majority in Parliament seeks to scrap the institution entirely. Without that presidential support, he suggested, the office might already be gone.
“Politicians consider the OSP as bad news for their interests,” he said plainly, framing the institution not as a bureaucratic body but as a threat, one that powerful people have consistently sought to neutralise.
It is a sobering picture. An office established to pursue corruption, now spending its energy defending its own right to exist.
But Agyebeng’s message was not one of defeat. It was a rallying cry. He called on civil society and the broader Ghanaian public to become active defenders of the OSP, arguing that an anti-corruption institution cannot survive on the goodwill of any single president. Today’s ally, he implied, could be tomorrow’s adversary. The office needs something stronger and more durable than political favour; it needs constitutional protection.
The Special Prosecutor made clear that what is at stake is not just the fate of one institution, but the integrity of Ghana’s long-term fight against corruption. An OSP that must constantly battle for its survival cannot fully focus on its mandate. And a mandate left unfulfilled means impunity left unchecked.
“We must build this office for the ages,” he said, “so that future Special Prosecutors do not spend most of their time fighting for survival instead of executing their mandate.”
The words landed with the weight of lived experience, a prosecutor who knows, perhaps better than anyone, how easily the tools of accountability can be dismantled by those with the most to lose from them.
Ghana built the OSP to go after corruption. The question Agyebeng posed on Tuesday is whether Ghana has the will to protect it long enough to let it do just that.
Source: Apexnewsgh.com