Former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has said President Nana Akufo-Addo is to blame for the state’s failure to bring criminal charges against Legislators who were cited in an audit report to have received doubled salaries.
Mr Amidu has alleged in a statement released on Tuesday, May 25, 2021, that the President instructed former Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo, not to bring charges against the MPs found culpable in the 2018 audit report.
“The credible information I received on the case is and was that the then-Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions had both perused the case docket and had come to the conclusion that charges be filed against some of the suspects for prosecution.
“The Attorney General was instructed not to do so by the President who unconstitutionally usurped the investigatory and prosecutorial constitutional authority of the Attorney General on the grounds of political expediency of having the suspects agreeable to play ball in Parliament for government,†he states in his latest epistle.
Mr Amidu explains that has been compelled to write about the issue following an attempt by the current Attorney General, Godfred Dame, to implicate him in the scandal that seems to have fizzled out.
“Throughout my tenure as the Special Prosecutor, the respected former Attorney General, Ms. Gloria Akuffo, never referred this case to me for further investigation or prosecution. Any experienced and ethical person who has ever occupied the office of Deputy Minister of Justice under the Constitution knows that the Attorney General never sends a docket to another independent investigatory or prosecutorial agency without a covering letter forwarding the docket with requisite instructions or requests.
“Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame, the young and inexperienced Attorney General should know now that he is the Attorney General that there are no records in his office or the Director of Public Prosecution’s office showing that the Attorney-General, Ms. Gloria Akuffo, old enough to be Mr. Dame’s mother, sent any docket on this case to me as Special Prosecutor to prosecute. No such letter was ever received by me when I was the Special Prosecutor, and no records exists in the Office of the Special Prosecutor of receipt of such a letter or docket from Ms. Gloria Akuffo,†Martin Amidu states.
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It emerged in 2018 that many ministers who served under former President John Mahama took double salaries for four years, while others received double salaries for two and three years, probably because they were reshuffled.
According to the audit, in 2012, four of the ministers took double salaries and are currently not serving in Parliament, but by 2013 the double-salaried appointees had increased to 22, while in 2014 about 18 were said to be involved
The list showed that the appointees of the erstwhile John Mahama administration received double salaries at least once a month, while others received them monthly throughout the years.
Initially, 25 NDC MPs were said to have been invited by the CID, but the party's representatives in Parliament debunked the allegation.