Procurement Act Has Penalties But No Prosecutorial Bite To Jail Offenders – Kobina Ata-Bedu
Procurement Specialist, Kobina Ata-Bedu, has called for urgent reforms to strengthen Ghana’s anti-corruption fight, lamenting that the Procurement Act has penalties but lacks enforcement due to absence of prosecutorial powers.
Speaking at the National Anti-Corruption Dialogue on the theme “From Commitment to Delivery: Reviewing the Mahama Administration’s Anti-Corruption Agenda After 18 Months”, Mr. Ata-Bedu said the loopholes in the law make it difficult to convict persons who breach procurement laws.
“If you take the Procurement Act, Act 663 as amended, there are penalties in Section 92, and for you to be able to convict someone, you need prosecution. But they [Public Procurement Authority] don’t have prosecutorial powers. So ideally, what should happen is that if someone is found wanting, it has to go to an institution with prosecutorial powers, and so it can either be the OSP or EOCO,” he explained.
He questioned how corruption can be fought effectively if institutions mandated to prosecute are starved of funding.
“Now if these people are being starved of funding and they can’t do what they have to do, how do we then fight corruption? So we don’t have convicted cases of people who have breached Act 663 and have gone to jail because of that,” he said.
Citing an example of a case where money was sitting in a person’s bank account and later moved after the person lost his job, Mr. Ata-Bedu stressed that until loopholes are closed, the fight against corruption will not succeed.
“The one that we had, that the person lost their job, money was sitting in his bank account. The money moved. How did it move? It shouldn’t have happened. So until all these loopholes are closed, the fight against corruption will not go anywhere,” he stated.
Make OSP Truly Independent Of Politicians
Touching on the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), Mr. Ata-Bedu said the current arrangement where the OSP is described as independent yet subject to the Attorney-General undermines its work.
“The Supreme Court clearly said that the OSP has independent prosecutorial powers to prosecute. But they said that he is subject to the Attorney-General. How do you say he’s independent? He’s an independent prosecutor and then he has to go to the Attorney-General to get permission. It means if he wants to do it and the Attorney-General says you can’t do it, he can’t do it. So it’s time the OSP is made independent of the politicians, so they can do their job and we all support it,” he argued.
He referenced concerns raised by the Head of Legal at EOCO and Head of Communications at OSP that Ghana’s laws are inefficient.
“The Head of Legal at EOCO said that he is surprised. The Head of Communications at OSP says that we have inefficient laws because we give them laws, but we don’t give them the bite that will let them bite. If you have the two key people saying this, what does it mean?” he quizzed.
President Must Be Non-Partisan In Anti-Corruption Fight
Mr. Ata-Bedu said the President, who holds executive power, must demonstrate non-partisanship in the fight against corruption.
“The only person who has power to effect any change of that nature is the President, because he has executive power. We have given him all the powers. As long as he remains partisan, we won’t get anywhere because he will only chase his opponents. He won’t chase his people. We need him to be non-partisan,” he said.
He urged President Mahama to use his final term to leave a legacy by ruthlessly dealing with corruption.
“Right now, he has nothing to lose as a politician. When he goes on retirement, he is no longer a politician. He is a statesman. This is the best time for him to be ruthless and to bite the bullet and jail people when they steal, or jail people when they go wrong. That is the legacy he can leave for himself, that when he ruled, he ensured that corruption became a thing of the past,” he added.
