OSP Squandered GHS60m I Refused to Spend: Amidu

Former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu has made damning allegations against his successor, Kissi Agyebeng, accusing him and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) of gross fiscal irresponsibility and political selectiveness in the fight against corruption.

In a strongly worded open letter, Amidu disclosed that he refused to spend GHS60 million allocated to the OSP in the 2019 budget and instead chose to resign rather than engage in what he described as questionable financial practices.

“Ken Ofori-Atta blamed me in anger when I resigned as the Special Prosecutor for refusing to spend Sixty Million Ghana cedis from the OSP’s 2019 budget,” Amidu revealed.

“That money was specifically transferred into the OSP’s Special Operations Account at the Bank of Ghana in the first quarter of 2020.”

The funds, according to Amidu, were meant for converting a ten-storey building he secured for the OSP into a suitable office space.

However, he stated that the project was to be executed through sole sourcing — a method he strongly opposed due to its lack of transparency.

Amidu alleged that after his resignation, the current OSP leadership spent the money without delivering any tangible results, suggesting that the renovation either never took place or remains incomplete.

“The OSP under Kissi Agyebeng, as usual, dissipated the GHS60 million without anything to show for it,” he wrote, accusing the office of continuing a pattern of mismanagement across the 2020 to 2023 fiscal years.

Beyond financial issues, Amidu also criticized the timing of recent investigations launched by the OSP into former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, suggesting the probe was politically motivated and deliberately postponed during the tenure of the NPP administration.

“The OSP made no attempt to investigate the offences it now claims to be investigating all this while, just so they could continue receiving fat budgets,” Amidu charged. “This is not fighting corruption. This is anti-corruption entrepreneurship.”

The allegations are likely to deepen public concern over the credibility of anti-corruption institutions in Ghana, especially amid ongoing calls for transparency and accountability from both the current and former administrations.

As of now, Kissi Agyebeng and the OSP are yet to respond publicly to Amidu’s claims.