Senior Vice President of IMANI-Africa, Kofi Bentil, has urged Ghanaians to exercise patience with the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).

He emphasized that calling for the dissolution of the OSP, which was established in 2018, is premature.

This statement comes in response to the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin's assertion that the creation of the OSP was an ineffective move. Speaker Bagbin suggested that, instead of establishing the OSP, the government should have separated the Attorney-General's Department from the Ministry of Justice for more effective results in the fight against corruption.

In reaction to the Speaker's remarks, Kofi Bentil highlighted that Ghanaians often seek quick solutions to systemic problems and stressed the need for patience in evaluating the effectiveness of the OSP.

“I have to also say one of the problems I think in Ghana over these decades of public policy advocacy is that we tend to want very quick solutions. How old is the office of the Special Prosecutor? What has been the experience so far?

“We have had Mr. Martin Amidu who came in, all of us were elated, I can tell you honestly that some of us were told that Mr. Martin Amidu may not be able to achieve much. And these are people who were close to him.

“We didn’t listen, we thought look he was the greatest, we hailed him and what happened, happened. We now have lawyer Kissi Agyebeng there, how long has he been in office? How long have we resourced him? But already I can tell you lawyer Kissi Agyebeng the OSP is doing things that were unthinkable,” he said.

Kofi Bentil has expressed the opinion that although the current Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has not been in operation for an extended period, the achievements it has made in the limited time are considerable.

“In all our experience as an independent country, some of the things that had happened in this short time were not things that we could have contemplated being done by a sitting Attorney General. So look, it is too early to cancel that office and call it a failure.

“We want results but some things happen over time and if you ask me I think we’re on the path. What we need to have is patience and continue to work at it to make sure that this thing works,” he said.