Martin Amidu
The Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has been petitioned to investigate what has been described as an unsubstantiated payments at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
Petitioning the Special Prosecutor is a pro-NDC pressure group, Strategic Thinkers Network (STRANEK).
According to the organization in a petition signed by its Executive Director, Nii Tettey Tetteh, the Ministry has been indicted by the Auditor-General for failure to substantiate certain payments with the relevant payment vouchers and those deserves to be probed.
On June, 20, 2019, the Auditor-General published a report entitled The Public Accounts of Ghana, Ministries, Departments and Other Agencies-MDAs for the Financial Year Ended 31st December, 2018.
“On pages 186 to 189 of the Report it is indicated that after a review of payment records of the Ministry of Gender Children & Social Protection, six payments totalling GHC 1,556,691.00 and US$266,660.00 have been made by the Ministry, but requests for the relevant payment vouchers to substantiate the expenditure incurred have proven futile,” according to the petition.
Per the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959), we have a duty to petition your office on matters that involve or may involve corruption and corruption related offences, the petition read.
“We would like you to investigate this matter and ensure that the necessary sanctions are meted out where appropriate.
“We fervently hope our petition will be dealt with expeditiously and conclusively,” the group said.
However, it is not clear if the OSP has the mandate to probe infractions from Auditor General’s report since the reports are always submitted to the Parliament for the sitting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The PAC makes recommendations for the possible recouping of the misapplied funds if indeed that is the case.
DGN Online could not established if the payments in question were caarried out by the previous minister, Otiko Afisah Djaba or the current minister, Cynthia Mamle Morrison.
Interestingly the same ministry under Nana Oye Lithur during the NDC administration had its funds about GHC 5million locked up in the vault of her brother’s company in a conflict of interest situation with group raising no whimper.
By Melvin Tarlue