The office of the president has described as “most regrettable”, a claim by ex-Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was being “a judge in his own cause” as far as the former’s corruption and anti-corruption risk assessment of the controversial Agyapa Royalties deal is concerned.

In his resignation letter to the President, the anti-corruption crusader, who accused the President of politically interfering with his probe into the Agyapa deal, said: “More importantly, Your Excellency was acting as a judge in your own court, in usurping my functions to take any independent follow-up actions on the anti-corruption assessment report when you [President] knew from my 13-page letter of 16 October 2020, conveying the conclusions and observations of the anti-corruption assessment report to you that negative anti-corruption assessment had been made against the conduct of your office in the procedure adopted in granting the Executive Approval dated 24 March 2020 and your assent of the Minerals Income Investment (Amendment) Act, 2020 (Act 1024) on 27 August 2020 intended to retroactively impact the parliamentary approval of the transactions document granted on 14 August 2020”.

Mr Amidu explained: “Pages 31 to 33; and 52 to 53 of the full 64-page report, submitted to you on 2 November 2020, contains the detailed anti-corruption assessments on these matters. The total of the foregoing interventions by you in my functions, make my position as the Special Prosecutor, untenable”.

However, a response from the Office of the President signed by Executive Secretary Nana Asante Bediatuo, to address each of the allegations made by Mr Amidu, said, among other things that: “…You also accuse the President of being a judge in his own cause. This is the unkindest cut of all. You did not and have not alleged that the President, or could be, the subject of adverse findings or investigations arriving from your assessment report of the Agyapa transaction. It beggars belief, therefore, that you would insinuate that the President has, himself, something to hide and seeks to be ‘a judge in his own cause’. As a lawyer of many years’ standing, there is no doubt that you know that if one is not a party to or has an interest in a matter, one simply cannot be described as a judge in his own cause. That statement is most regrettable”.

Read the President’s response in full below: