Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has cautioned against the hailing of the former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, as an authority to be running commentary on the actions of the present Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng.
According to him, the former Special Prosecutor when given the opportunity to deliver failed to do so, thus should not be obstructing the work of the present Special Prosecutor with long epistles.
“He [Martin Amidu] had everything he needed to do the work – and nobody has everything perfectly – he opted to go the way he went and left the office. We now have Mr. Kissi Agyebeng there; Kissi has done more than Mr. Amidu did.
“Mr. Amidu should not be sniping at him, making such commentary. We all make commentary, we all criticize, we all say what we have to say. But you and I and everybody else should be careful not to make Martin into somebody who will be running commentary and then we will sit back and then be analyzing what Mr. Agyebeng is doing because of what Martin Amidu is saying. I absolutely will not join that bandwagon,” Kofi Bentil said on JoyNews’ PM Express.
His comment follows a recent commentary on the investigation of the Special Prosecutor into the Labianca company by Martin Amidu.
Reacting to the report, Mr Amidu said the Labianca report is hollow, without mandate and unconstitutional.
This, he explained, is because “the report seriously violates the statutory mandate of the OSP under the 1992 Constitution.” He said the report is also inconsistent with and contravenes Act 959 and the 1992 Constitution.
However, reacting to the former Special Prosecutor’s assertions, Kofi Bentil stated that while Kissi Agyebeng is yet to make any major breakthrough in prosecuting corrupt elements within and outside the government, forcing him to tow the line Martin Amidu did would be the wrong option.
“Mr. Kissi Agyebeng has done far more than Mr. Martin Amidu did in that office, let’s leave him alone. We will not lead Mr. Kissi Agyebeng to be walking in the shoes of Mr. Martin Amidu; he brought his own shoes, he’s going to do things his own way.
“Mr. Kissi Agyebeng is a lawyer of significant repute and specifically a criminal law expert, so I don’t think that anybody should be sitting down and running commentary when he hasn’t even finished his work. He’s on a course, he hasn’t finished,” he said.
He added, “We are all saying this is a good start. I just mentioned that it is early days yet for us to be hailing him, we’re happy because he has achieved something. He just started so why should Mr. Martin Amidu be running all this commentary? What he’s doing constitutes sniping.
“I urge Mr. Agyebeng to focus and none of us should go on an analyses of what Mr. Martin Amidu is saying because we’ll be wasting our breath. Let us see what we can do to make progress. I think Mr. Agyebeng is making progress.”
He stated that Kissi Agyebeng should be given sufficient time to do what he can to bring culprits to book following which he would either be hailed or criticized for the work he has done.
But till then, “I don’t think we should allow the persons of Mr. Amidu and others who were given full opportunity and refused to do the job to come and run commentary on what other people are doing.”