DID THE SP INHERITED 9 EMPLOYEES FROM MARTIN AMIDU?
GHANAWEB, DID THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TELL THE ATTORNEY GENERAL THAT HE INHERITED NINE EMPLOYEES FROM MARTIN AMIDU?
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
On Wednesday, 1st September 2021, I read three news items on GhanaWeb about a meeting between the Special Prosecutor, Mr. Kissi Agyebeng, and the Attorney General. The Special Prosecutor is reported to have stated that he has a total of nine employees including drivers, cleaners, a prosecutor on secondment from the Attorney General’s office and an investigator on secondment from the police service. My handing over notes to the Acting Special Prosecutor who took over from me shows that I left behind more police investigators and other staff for the Office. Any attrition in numbers occurred during the tenure of the Acting Special Prosecutor who is now Mr. Agyebeng’s deputy and available to explain to Mr. Agyebeng what happened between 16th November 2020 and 9th August 2021 when he reported for duty. I was therefore surprised to have read on 2nd September 2021, the following statement from GhanaWeb with the source as GhanaWeb attributing to the Special Prosecutor the following:
“Kissi Agyebeng, the second occupant of the Office of the Special Prosecutor has disclosed he inherited a total of nine employees from his predecessor, Martin Amidu when he took office on August 5, 2021.
According to him, the staff inherited included drivers, cleaners, a prosecutor on secondment from the Attorney General’s office and an investigator on secondment from the Ghana Police Service.”
I resigned as the Special Prosecutor on 16th November 2020 and by operation of law the Deputy Special Prosecutor became the Acting Special Prosecutor until a substantive Special Prosecutor was appointed on 5th August 2021. The Special Prosecutor formally reported for duty at the Office on 9th August 2021. I do not know when the Acting Special Prosecutor formally handed over the administration of the office to him. Whatever handing over notes the substantive Special Prosecutor might have received on his formal assumption of office, my handing over notes to the Acting Special Prosecutor are official records of the Office and should have been made available to the Special Prosecutor. I would have asked for them, as the new and substantive Special Prosecutor, even if they were not made available to me, and I wish to assume that the Special Prosecutor was given those notes or that he asked for and has read them. Consequently, I find the categorical statement by GhanaWeb stating that: “Kissi Agyebeng, the second occupant of the Office of the Special Prosecutor has disclosed he inherited a total of nine employees from his predecessor, Martin Amidu when he took office on August 5, 2021” very strange and disturbing.
Did Mr. Kissi Agyebeng say that he inherited nine employees from me, Martin Amidu, when he knows so well from the official records contained in my handing over notes and my budget submissions to the Ministry of Finance for the 2021 Budget that the Office had more staff working in it as at the time I resigned from the Office? I do not want to think that GhanaWeb deliberately reframed what Mr. Agyebeng said and brought my name in to bate me into a response to the statements attributed to him as the Special Prosecutor. That of course will be unethical journalism, mischievous, and will not be helping the fight against corruption.
I have read attributions to the Special Prosecutor about the efficacy of fighting corruption with seconded staff and his determination to employ 250 staff by January 2022. All the issues allegedly raised by him are dealt with in my handing over notes and may be of some use to him if he has not seen or read them already. I also left behind good conditions of service endorsed by the Minister of Finance, approved by Parliament, and appropriated by law in the 2019 and 2020 budgets years for employees of the Office. My proposals for the 2021 budget repeated those emoluments in the calculations for the compensation budget. The compensation budget of the Office show clearly the levels for each category of staff as provided for in the Regulations of the Office as were appropriated by law for the previous budget years.
Any variation in the emoluments and conditions of service of officers of the Office as previously endorsed by the Ministry of Finance, approved by Parliament and appropriated by law after my resignation must have been the handy work of the Acting Special Prosecutor, and the seconded Chief Accountant to the Office. While I was the Special Prosecutor, I had hammered it home to my deputy, and the Chief Accountant, a seconded staff who thought otherwise, that one cannot fight corruption with poorly paid staff. I gave them several examples to support why I had ensured that provision was made in the Regulations for reasonable conditions of service for the employees of the Office. I have also said several times to the press that the Office cannot fight corruption with seconded staff. Hong Kong failed when it first tried with seconded staff. Any changes to the statutory determined and budgetary approved conditions of service for the substantive employees of the Office after my resignation and before the assumption of duty of the substantive officeholder of the office gives an indication of how helpful they can be to the Special Prosecutor in fighting corruption. I do not envy Mr. Kissi Agyebeng’s situation because I have been through similar situations with the same detractors who always pulled the Office down as an independent anti-corruption entity.
I am concerned that words might have been put into the mouth of Mr. Agyebeng as the Special Prosecutor when he is reported to have stated that: “.... he inherited nine employees from his predecessor, Martin Amidu when he took office on August 5, 2021.” The Special Prosecutor needs the support of every genuine anti-corruption crusader if corruption is to be made a high-risk venture for all public office holders and their collaborators. The Special Prosecutor has a lot of overt and covert challenges to overcome if he must succeed in his office. I went through similar overt challenges as amplified in my handing over notes. I am, therefore, requesting Ghanaweb through this article to confirm whether Mr. Kissi Agyebeng made any reference to inheriting nine employees from me, by name, during the meeting referred to in its publication of 2nd September 2021 with the heading: “I inherited nine staff from Martin Amidu – Special Prosecutor tells A-G.” This will enable me to make a fitting detailed and factual rejoinder to the publication attributed to Mr. Kissi Agyebeng in exercise of my constitutional right to a rejoinder. In the fight against corruption, it is important that every Ghanaian citizen puts Ghana First before self and politics.
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
I feel very strongly that when an Interested Party or Parties join the case of Adamtey v the Attorney-General pending before the Supreme Court for determination and canvass the alternative perspective submitted in this discourse, the Supreme Court may come to the conclusion and decide that the Special Prosecutor has prosecutorial powers under Act 959 and L. I. 2374, particularly under Regulation 11 thereof.
The US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act. 1978 in Morrison v Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988) and the Supreme Court of Ghana may be similarly persuaded that the Special Prosecutor who cannot be appointed by the President without being first nominated by the Attorney-General under Act 959 is thereby clothed with prosecutorial authority for the appointed tenure of seven years.
Kissi Agyebeng has exposed his own incompetence and vindictiveness as the Special Prosecutor to the entire world in the manner in which he handled the allegations of corruption made by Martin Kpebu against him and the OSP he supervises. The consequence has been the massive public disapproval of his conduct in unlawfully arresting and detaining Martin Kpebu with the draconian bail condition of the production of a landed property in Martin Kpebu’s own name.
The charges filed in the High Court, Accra, by the OSP on Tuesday 18 November 2025 in the Strategic Mobilization Ghana Limited (SML) case has been variously alleged to be a camouflage for corruption involving in one case US$14 million, and to cover-up for the incompetence and misconduct of Kissi Agyebeng in applying for and placing Ken Ofori-Atta on an INTERPOL Red Notice on 5 June 2025.
Whatever grievances anybody may have against Kissi Agyebeng the objective position is that William Kissi Agyebeng does not possess the high moral character and proven integrity to lead the fight against corruption in Ghana because he is dishonest to high heavens to be the Special Prosecutor of Ghana as the interview of Kissi Agyebeng published on the “YouTube - The KSM Show” demonstrates.
The unfolding facts on the declaration of former Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, as a wanted suspect who had allegedly absconded from justice on 2 June 2025 at a media conference by the Special Prosecutor (SP), William Kissi Agyebeng, points to the irresistible conclusion that the SP was deliberately and dishonestly deceiving Ghanaians about the legitimacy of the decision that went into the declaration against Ken Ofori-Atta that day.
Mr. President, be even handed and crack the whip to recover all loot from the OSP and earn the nation’s respect this time round in your tenure. Vindicate the electorate’s trust in you and anchor the NDC on solid grounds for 7 December 2028. Mr. President, I will stand by you all the way in any genuine endeavour by you to fight corruption in Ghana. We can only achieve this by, Putting Ghana First!
President Mahama, deal with the payroll “economic crime scene” at the OSP which made a favourable decision for your benefit first and establish your credibility to deal with the irregularities at the NEIP, and the annulment of all appointments made by former President Akufo-Addo after 7 December 2024.
The profane declaration of Ken Ofori-Atta as a fugitive from Ghanaian justice by the OSP during the tenure of the John Dramani Mahama government discloses the true nature and character of the Special Prosecutor as a double agent serving the politico-economic interests of the deep state elite in both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to scam the citizens of this country in the name of the fight against corruption.
I cannot as a person born in the then NT recommend Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a person with the trait of honesty, integrity and selfless service exhibited by our forebearers from the NT to the Republic of Ghana to be elected on 7 December 2024 as President symbolizing a representation of northerners on an NPP ticket for Ghana. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is not only an opportunist and pretender, he has lost track of the high moral character associated with his own biological family and the forebearers of Northern Ghana.
I cannot understand why the NDC will collaborate with the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng’s preferred rented media house, Joy FM, and his chief executioner there, Sampson Lardy Anyenini, to make allegations against me without publishing the alleged petition on which the allegations are based to provide me the opportunity to confirm or deny my signature and rebut or admit the accusations. Kissi Agyebeng, Joy FM, and the NDC’s McCarthyism must be stopped by all patriotic citizens before they implode the 1992 Constitution.
The Kissi Agyebeng inspired petition to Parliament to probe into EOCO’s failure to investigate the non-existing money laundering allegations against Cecilia Dapaah is an exercise in futility except when the self confessed corrupt National Democratic Congress (NDC) Speaker of Parliament decides to use the petition for transactional political purposes. An NDC Member of Parliament (MP) I brought up into the politics of the Fourth Republic just also confessed that one cannot be an MP without being corrupt. Is that true?
Kissi Agyebeng is so full of himself, he doesn’t see that by selectively appointing and giving higher ranks to some staff and neglecting others who think they deserve the same or better ranks he has antagonized several of his unlawfully appointed staff. How can he be parading a report which GNAT is contesting as reasons for his indispensability in the fight against corruption in Ghana? Especially when his OSP staff being paid in violation of Article 195 of the 1992 Constitution and Section 21 of Act 959 from the public purse are all ghost workers on the OSP payroll.
The changing narrative shows that the corrupt and fraudulent William Kissi Agyebeng, the modern day John Ackah Blay-Miezah of our era, has assessed the inevitability of an impending waterloo in the court cases he had brought against Cecilia Abena Dapaah and the human rights and freedoms relief for injunction she brought against him for the infringement of her constitutional rights and is looking for a lifesaving escape through the side door.
A Special Prosecutor abuses his mandate and commits the very suspected corruption and corruption-related offences he is appointed to fight against when he willfully and intentionally abuses his office for whatever consideration in aid of the cause of close associates by arresting, searching, detaining, and interrogating their opponents in the pretended name of fighting corruption and is discriminatorily corrupt to the core.
The original joint statement must definitely have been signed by officers from the two public institutions which the public is entitled to be provided with. I smell a psychological operation from the rogue OSP in the issuance of the joint statement to coincide with the publication of my article on 27 December 2023 about breaches of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017, (Act 959) pervasively taking place in the OSP. Let the Judicial Service be heard on this alleged joint statement before rushing to unfounded judgment against it. Truth shall stand!
The facts, information and intelligence, and the available evidence demonstrate that the Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng, is so desperate to protect the pervasive and endemic mismanagement, the culture of corruption, massive staff recruitment malpractices, and public procurement malpractices within the OSP by resorting to blackmailing the government with publications of former government appointees he is prosecuting to rally public support against possible impeachment for misconduct.
The cancer of a Special Prosecutor that has infected the OSP for the past two years cannot be allowed to metastasize to infect the healthy working relations between organic law enforcement, the citizen, and the administration of justice guaranteed under law. Consequently, patriotic citizens ought to be protecting the 1992 Constitution and the sanctity and independence of the judiciary by invoking the provisions of Section 15(3) of Act 959 for the removal of the Special Prosecutor from office.
Any citizen upon whom the Special Prosecutor purports to give notice under regulation 20 of L.I. 2374 who has not been charged with any one of the eleven (11) specified corruption or corruption-related offences would commit no offence under Section 69(1) of Act 959 for non-compliance because the demand pursuant to regulation 20 of L. I. 2374 would have been made by the Special Prosecutor unlawfully. The Special Prosecutor took no valid statement on caution from Cecilia Dapaah or charged her with any specified offence.
The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, is running away with his tail between his legs from the adversarial process of the High Court even in matters which are sub judice. The proper forum for a competent and an experienced Special Prosecutor to state why the five bank accounts should be de-frozen when the matter is already in court, is before the High Court and not in the media to con the unsuspecting public.
Kissi Agyebeng appears to have personalized and politicized investigating the Cecilia Dapaah case as though he has a hidden agenda to use her to prove his competence as a Special Prosecutor. Should Ghanaians allow Kissi Agyebeng to turn the OSP into an unruly unconstitutional monster, then no citizen will be free from his inquisitorial and prosecutorial tentacles. Kissi Agyebeng used the OSP to violate constitutional rights of those citizens involved in the Labianca case; he abused Professor Frimpong-Boateng’s right to presumption of innocence; and it is now the turn of Cecilia Dapaah. It will be YOU the next time, should we all keep quiet.
A dragnet for “everyone and every person” is not law enforcement under the 1992 Constitution. It is witch hunting Agyebengism, pure and simple. When tyrannical investigators and prosecutors in the mold of William Kissi Agyebeng are let alone, they deploy empty rhetorical performances, which signify nothing, to confuse the public. The emerging tyranny of William Kissi Agyebeng activates the constitutional and patriotic duty of citizens to respond to those abuses and stop them in their tracks before they destroy this country with a new McCarthyism.
Did Mr. Kissi Agyebeng say that he inherited nine employees from me, Martin Amidu, when he knows so well from the official records contained in my handing over notes and my budget submissions to the Ministry of Finance for the 2021 Budget that the Office had more staff working in it as at the time I resigned from the Office? All the issues allegedly raised by him are dealt with in my handing over notes and may be of some use to him if he has not seen or read them already…
Commonsense should have pointed Mr. Dame to the fact that a declaration of nullity ab initio by the Court would have been a disaster for the calculating “Puppet Master”, the President, Nana Akufo Addo, and “The Family” from which the President would never have recovered his loss of face and not for me or my then deputy. The many appointed older members and associates of “The Family” who are still at post facilitating its corruption would have been out of office. I welcome Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame’s pomposity and arrogance because they urge me on to continue criticizing him as a customary Ghanaian parent to change for his own betterment.
The public must be reminded that the three-year mandate of the Governing Board of the Office of the Special Prosecutor expired at midnight on 11th July 2021 without word from the President or the Office to the public. Now that the three-year tenure of the Governing Board of the Office has expired, patriotic Ghanaians need to be alert and support the Anti-Corruption Civil Society Organizations to ensure that this time round their chosen representative is sworn-in by the President when the new Board comes to be inaugurated.
This article demonstrates what consequences await any appointee of this Government who takes literally, as I did, the President’s rhetoric of “be citizens’ and not “spectators”. The Agyapa Royalties Transactions anti-corruption analysis and assessment report was done professionally without fear or favour, affection, or ill will. When our political rhetorical President saw that the report implicated him, his family, and friends in suspected corruption activities, an official government anti-corruption assessment supported by law became an instrument of political damage control for his government. The President not only sought to interfere for me to shelve the report from the public, but…
The Office of the Special Prosecutor has been in a vulnerable state since the assumption of the duties of the Special Prosecutor by the Deputy Special Prosecutor by operation of law. Apart from Board meetings held in November and December 2020 no Board meeting to the best of my knowledge has been held since the Chief of Staff’s “very urgent” directives issued on 12/012021. Crucial decisions affecting an independent anti-corruption agency are being taken singlehandedly by one person on instructions even after being passed over for nomination for consideration and possible approval. A new Special Prosecutor would thus have been undermined….
My resignation as the first Special Prosecutor was the result of the endemic attitude of President, Nana Akufo Addo’s penchant to usurp the constitutional authority of investigators and prosecutors in criminal justice administration as he tried to do in the Agyapa Royalties Transaction Anti-Corruption Risk Assessment Report implicating him. It had nothing to do with the Members of Parliament double salaries which I never saw nor handled during my tenure. The President’s responses to the media on 13th December 2018 is evidence that this President determines who may be prosecuted for crime and not the Attorney General or Special Prosecutor…
By all means let anybody root for his or her preferred Special Prosecutor as an insurance against prosecution for corruption in Government but leave me out of the propaganda. I am honouring an undertaking by my silence in not commenting on public affairs. Stop tempting me to speak by the defaming propaganda against me. It will not be in anyone’s interest.
The Government may wish to invite a trusted and friendly anti-corruption country such as Singapore or the United Kingdom or the United States or Denmark to send independent anti-corruption officers to replicate my analysis and anti-corruption assessment work giving rise to the report using the same source letters and documents. I am confident professionally and ethically that they will arrive at the same anti-corruption assessments contained in the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions report. I explained this to my dear friend the Minister of Finance when he visited me as early as 5:36 am on the morning of 22nd October 2020 in the company of a mutual friend. I pray that the President takes up this challenge so that the concerted effort he is leading to throw me under the bus and bringing my reputation into disrepute for acting professionally in the Agyapa anti-corruption assessment report in which the President has a personal interest comes to an end.