The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) has waded into the high-stakes debate over the future of Ghana’s anti-corruption architecture, with its Executive Secretary, Duncan Amoah, calling for the total dissolution of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
Mr Amoah delivered a negative assessment of the OSP, dismissing it as a redundant entity that has failed to justify its existence or its significant financial burden on the taxpayer. His remarks follow a week of judicial turbulence for the office, which recently saw its independent prosecutorial powers curtailed by the High Court.
Mr Amoah argued that the OSP was born out of a desire for institutional parallelism that has only served to create confusion and waste.
He maintained that the traditional investigative and prosecutorial arms of the state, including the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), are more than capable of handling corruption cases if provided with the resources currently being drained by the OSP.
“Let that OSP go. There is a blot, a drain on our resources. We are clearly duplicating a lot of the efforts that the other institutions originally are mandated to,” Mr Amoah stated on Channel One TV on Saturday, 18th April 2026.
He further challenged the efficacy of the office, questioning whether it has delivered any results that the Attorney-General’s Department could not have achieved through established channels.
“I don’t think that the OSP is here to serve Ghanaians any proper purpose that the Attorney-General’s office could not serve. I don’t think the OSP would have done any better job than EOCO or the police CID,” he added.
A central pillar of the OSP’s creation in 2017 was its supposed autonomy from the Executive. However, the COPEC boss dismissed this claim as a fallacy, pointing to the appointment process as a fundamental flaw that compromises the office’s ability to act as a truly independent watchdog.
According to Mr Amoah, the creation of such “parallel structures” does not lead to better outcomes; instead, it fosters institutional overlaps that create friction and “unnecessary tensions” among state agencies. He suggested that the nation would be better served by a consolidated approach where existing constitutional bodies are empowered rather than bypassed.
The calls for the OSP’s scrapping come at a critical juncture. A recent High Court ruling, which ordered the Attorney-General to take over all criminal prosecutions previously managed by the OSP, has left the office in a state of legal limbo.
While supporters of the OSP, including several civil society organisations, argue that the office remains a necessary check on political corruption, voices like Mr Amoah’s reflect a growing public impatience with institutions that appear to be high on cost but low on convictions.
As the debate intensifies, the government faces increasing pressure to conduct a comprehensive review of the OSP Act to determine whether the office should be reformed, absorbed back into the Attorney-General’s Department, or, as Duncan Amoah suggests, scrapped entirely.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com