General News of Monday, 16 November 2020

Source: 3news.com

Amidu’s resignation: Agyapa deal corruption risk assessment cited as reason

Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu

Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has cited among other things his analysis of the risk of prevention of corruption and anti-corruption assessment of the Agyapa Royalties deal as a reason for his resignation.

Mr. Amidu Monday November 16 sent his resignation the President and a public statement announcing his resignation.

Parts of the public statement indicates that his resignation was as a result of his recent corruption risk assessment of the controversial Agyapa Royalties agreement in which some key government appointees and close associates to government were fingered.

According to Martin Amidu, the conduct of the exercise did not go down well with the powers that be, an experience he described as traumatizing.

“I should not ordinarily be announcing my resignation to the public myself but the traumatic experience I went through from 20th October 2020 to 2nd November 2020 when I conveyed in a thirteen (13) page letter the conclusions and observations on the analysis of the risk of corruption and anti-corruption assessment on the Report On Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions and Other Matters Related Thereto to the President as Chairman of the National Security Council cautions against not bringing my resignation as the Special Prosecutor with immediate to the notice of the Ghanaian public and the world.

“In undertaking the analysis of the risk of prevention of corruption and anti-corruption assessment I sincerely believed that I was executing an independent mandate under the Office of the Special Prosecutor, Act, 2017 (Act 959) and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (Operations) Regulations, 2018 (L. I. 2374). The reaction I received for daring to produce the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions anti-corruption report convinces me beyond any reasonable doubt that I was not intended to exercise any independence as the Special Prosecutor in the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and recovery of assets of corruption. My position as the Special Prosecutor has consequently become clearly untenable.”