The Director of Strategy, Evaluation, and Communication at the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), Samuel Appiah Darko, has stressed the need for laws in the country to explicitly define corruption.

Speaking at a recent forum in Accra, he explained that while acts like illegal mining, stealing, and tax evasion are all serious crimes, they are not, by default, classified as corruption.

"It is time in Ghana we call offences as they are. Galamsey is galamsey. If you engage in galamsey, it is an offence on its own. If you engage in stealing, stealing is an offence on its own. If you engage in money laundering, it is money laundering.

"If you engage in tax evasion, it is tax evasion. Until Ghana's laws decide to now define corruption to include tax evasion, money laundering, then we cannot say that tax evasion, money laundering is corruption properly so-called", he explained.

Samuel Appiah Darko further clarified that the mandate of the Office of the Special Prosecutor is limited to investigating corruption and corruption-related crimes. As such, issues like tax evasion and money laundering fall outside its jurisdiction unless these crimes are legally defined as corruption.

"That is why when the OSP was investigating some issue, we ended up saying you can't investigate this matter. It falls under tax evasion and money laundering, and when we sent it to a sister organisation, people were angry; they did not understand why the OSP cannot investigate that, because the power given to the OSP limits the OSP to only corruption and corruption related. This does not include money laundering, which does not include tax evasion. So, it cannot go into those aspects", he explained.

JKB

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