The Special Prosecutor position has become vacant following the
resignation of Martin Amidu on Monday, November 16.
This means that the President must, in accordance
with the Office of Special Prosecutor Act 2017, Act 959, nominate a new person
to be vetted by Parliament for the post.
Mr Ampaw has an impeccable legacy in the legal
fraternity. He has over the years championed human rights campaigns and fair
justice.
He is known for the instrumental
role he played in ensuring that Ghana gets a Right To Information Law to ensure
transparency in the utilisation of public resources.
Although he is fully qualified for this position, he
is likely to be challenged if eventually his name comes up for consideration
because of his role in the election petition hearing in the Supreme Court after
the 2012 polls in which he served as one of the lawyers for the then opposition
leader and now President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
If this becomes an issue, he can, however, cite the
appointment of Mr Yonny Kulendi as a Supreme Court Justice by President Nana
Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo even when the had been friends and also worked together
in the same law firm for years.
If Justice Kulendi is able to work without fear or
favour as justice of the apex court with this background, then Mr Ampaw should
also be able to work as the Special Prosecutor in spite of his relationship
with the president.
Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare (Azar)
Stephen Kwaku Asare is the KPMG
Professor of Accounting at the University of Florida where he teaches courses
in forensic accounting, financial reporting, attestation, managerial
accounting, corporate governance, and controls.
He is a Certified Fraud Examiner and a member of the
Florida Bar.
Given his rich background in accounting and also law,
he will be able to deal with the issues of financial malfeasance that come
before the Special Prosecutor.
Linda Ofori Kwafo
The next person likely to be appointed the next SP is
Mrs Linda Ofori Kwafo
Mrs Ofori Kwafo is currently the Board Chair of the
Office of the Special Prosecutor. She is an anti-corruption campaigner, working
with the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII).
She has worked on various corruption-related issues
and chaired a lot of workshops on corruption relation related topics.
She is fit to be the next SP because she is familiar
with the operations of the Office after serving as the Board Chair.
Kofi Abotsi
The next person is Mr Kofi Abotsi.
Mr Abotsi is an academic and legal practitioner. He
is also the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Professional
Studies, Accra (UPSA).
Mr Abotsi was the Dean of the School of Law at the
Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) from 2014 to
2018 for his appointment at UPSA.
Among his recent feats was his role as Executive
Secretary on the Commission of Inquiry into the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election
violence back in 2019.
Anna Bossman
Anna Bossman is a Ghanaian human rights advocate. She
was formerly the director for the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Department of
the African Development Bank (AfDB).
In 2017, she was appointed Ghana’s ambassador to
France.
After serving as an Assistant State Attorney in
Ghana’s Ministry of Justice, Bossman went into private practice, and over the
subsequent 25 years would pursue a career in the oil and gas industry and
energy sector, working with major international companies including Tenneco in
Gabon (where she was the first woman secretary-general of the Gabonese Union of
Petroleum Companies), Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Angola, as well as in Ghana, where
in 1996 she founded Bossman Consultancy Limited to provide support to power
utilities and energy sectors, international institutions and donor agencies as
well as private companies and business investors.
She was Deputy Commissioner of Ghana’s Commission for
Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) from 2002 to 2010, where she
was appointed Acting Commissioner.
In July 2011, she was employed by the African
Development Bank Group as Director of the Integrity and Anti-Corruption
Department, in charge of investigations of fraud, corruption and other
malpractices.
In June 2017, she was appointed Ghana’s ambassador to
France, and presented her letters of credence to French President Emmanuel
Macron on 13 October 2017. She was also Ghana’s ambassador to Portugal and her
country’s permanent representative to UNESCO
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