It has emerged that the former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu used less than half of the total amount of money allocated to his office since 2018.

A report from the Ministry of Finance indicates that the Office of the Special Prosecutor utilized GHS129,016,189.52 out of the GHS322,097,921.40 budgetary allocations made to the office from 2018 to 2020.

The Ministry pointed out that over GHS138,146,482.40 was allocated to the Office of the Special Prosecutor as at 16th November 2020.

The Ministry added that a total of GHS3,791,214.00 and GHS180,160,225.00 were allocated to the office as at the end of the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years.

The Office recorded the lowest allocation of GHS3.79 million in 2018 because the office had now been established and their allocation formed part of the 2018 budget of the Ministry of Justice and Attorney -General’s Office.

The Ministry further indicated that one major challenge identified during the implementation of budgets of the Office of the Special Prosecutor was “their inability to initiate transactions on the GIFMIS platform to facilitate the release of funds.”

The Office of the Special Prosecutor utilised GHS154,261.84 in 2018, GHS65,690,067.55 in 2019 and GHS63,171,860.13 by November 2020.

The Ministry’s clarification has been necessitated by the former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu’s claim that his office lacked the requisite resources to effectively carry out its mandate.

Mr. Amidu in his resignation letter described what he said was his inability to do what was required of him due to the failure of the government to provide him with what he required to do the job.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, however, denied this claim saying the office was adequately resourced.

President Akufo-Addo in a statement disclosed that he had instructed the Chief of Staff and the Minister of Finance to ensure the expeditious set-up of the Office of the Special Prosecutor, adding that he did his best to ensure that the Office and the human resources it had, were provided with the necessary assistance in terms of funds and administrative support to execute their duties without hitches.

Source: Citinewsroom.com