On Thursday, I sat in a room with individuals who have spent years demanding accountability from government, public officials, and state institutions. I’m talking about civil society leaders, journalists, and lawyers whose names are synonymous with Ghana’s anti-corruption crusade.
Manasseh Azure Awuni had been invited to assess President John Mahama’s anti-corruption record after 18 months in office. Listening to him, there was something remarkable about the room. Almost all of us shared substantially the same assessment.
The Mahama administration, so far, deserves credit. Not a blank cheque, not applause without reservation, and certainly not canonisation. Not yet, but credit.
Manasseh pointed to ongoing investigations and prosecutions, the termination of wasteful contracts such as the SML contract, and public procurement reforms.
Well, there’s some really dirty stuff that is still going on there, with the big push on sole sourcing, where 81 contracts out of 107 major contracts have been sole-sourced, consuming over GH¢73 billion.
He also referred to the reduction in ministerial appointments, the President’s Code of Conduct, and EOCO’s advertised record of recoveries.
We need the details.
For a room accustomed to criticising state power, that acknowledgement was significant—very significant. Yet a palpable caution remained.
Eighteen months is not four years.
Political power often begins sober, only to become intoxicated over time. While there is progress today, the true test is whether President Mahama maintains this discipline, or whether political convenience, party pressure, and selective accountability—which began his administration with nole-prosequis—will eventually overcome him.
Manasseh raised an issue that sent a shock across the room. I looked at the CHRAJ Commissioner and the Special Prosecutor as I asked myself if they could tell what I was thinking.
When investigations become pre-trial punishments, the integrity of an anti-corruption campaign is measured not merely by how many people you investigate or how dramatic your arrests are, but by how you treat the accused under the law.
It is very critical.
The concern raised confirmed a rather unfortunate narrative about how the EOCO treats suspects. This time, it is the handling of officials and lawyers connected to the PDS investigations.
In April, Philip Kwame Asare Ayesu was detained for two days. He was hit with GH¢100 million bail.
Yes, that was arbitrarily doubled from GH¢50 million within a couple of days.
His bank accounts, both corporate and personal, were also frozen—dozens of them. They were frozen even when no personal transfers of PDS funds were found.
As affirmed in court documents I have seen in a suit against the EOCO, his lawyers were also detained and have, since May, been subjected to reporting to the EOCO three times a week.
Three times a week.
This is despite satisfying onerous, massively punitive bail conditions and cooperating fully for months.
The court documents point to direct transfers initiated from the already frozen bank accounts into EOCO holding accounts.
Yes, this is even before any criminal liability has been proven in court.
They don’t only freeze the accounts; they are taking the monies out of the accounts.
The EOCO maintains that these measures were necessary due to suspicious transactions, near-total withdrawals, and the threat of asset dissipation.
According to the court documents, investigating economic crime is undeniably complex, and law enforcement requires strong tools. But high power demands higher restraint.
Our laws are clear.
Bail ought not to be used as punishment. So, too, freezing orders pending the conclusion of investigations are not intended to be weaponised against suspects. Suspects are presumed innocent under the Constitution.
When a suspect satisfies multi-million-cedi bail, cooperates fully, and poses no flight or tampering risk, forcing them to report three times a week for months ceases to look like an investigative necessity.
It begins to look like pre-trial coercion.
Similarly, if an account is already frozen and inaccessible to the owner, transferring those funds into EOCO accounts before establishing a crime exceeds reasonable preservation.
We must tell them.
We must safeguard the rule of law, and that is my only motivation here.
We cannot condemn the abuse of power by politicians while excusing the abuse of power by state institutions simply because they are targeting people we suspect of corruption.
Even institutional independence does not equal institutional immunity from public scrutiny.
The more coercive an agency becomes, the more vigilantly society must monitor it.
President Mahama’s anti-corruption scorecard currently earns cautious approval.
However, institutional excesses risk becoming a blot on the entire effort.
The government does not win the corruption fight merely because suspects are made uncomfortable. It wins when investigations are thorough and professional; prosecutions are credible and evidence-based; stolen assets are lawfully recovered; the guilty are convicted; and the innocent are protected from state overreach.
By all means, let the EOCO investigate PDS, follow every cedi, trace every transaction, and prosecute anyone where the evidence establishes a crime.
But do so strictly according to the law.
If our anti-corruption institutions become arbitrary or oppressive, we have merely traded one form of tyranny for another.
And Ghana’s anti-corruption fight deserves better than that.
EOCO, OSP, BNI, CHRAJ, the Auditor-General, Parliament, the Attorney-General, and all the accountability institutions with police powers must be closely monitored and held to the highest standards of accountability.
We need reverse-burden and non-conviction-based forfeiture rules now; otherwise, the corruption fight is lost, as the EOCO has maintained.
And that is my take.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
