Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong says her ministry cannot be blamed for the nation\u2019s failure to prosecute those indicted in the Auditor General\u2019s report for financial malfeasance.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”p6qdpXNxnUwu3CTDsmdMCTaK8GfTNvsS”]Ghana lost over GH\u00a2100 million in 2013 alone as a result of irregularities at the ministries, departments and agencies based on the 2011 performance.<\/p>\n
President Mahama has on several occasions called on the AG to prosecute those offenders, but speaking to Parliament\u2019s Public Account Committee, the Attorney General insists it is not the job of her ministry to do the investigations, which mostly is what is lacking.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026you must understand that prosecution is a whole process. We cannot just get up, take the auditor general\u2019s report to court, and prosecute based on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cthere is a process of actually building a docket with the witness statements, with the charge statements, caution statements, a whole lot of things http:\/\/vhealthportal.com\/product\/tadalis\/<\/a> that there should be a diary of action. And so it\u2019s not just the attorney general, it\u2019s a holistic thing that must be done, we must work with the public accounts committee, with the investigative body.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026By our mandate in the constitution, the attorney general does not investigate, we prosecute\u2026 but we collaborate with all agencies to ensure that a very good docket is built and prosecuted in court.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, speaking on Eyewitness News<\/strong>, ranking member on Parliament\u2019s Public Accounts Committee, Ibrahim Dey urged the AG to speed up\u00a0 the prosecution process.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want the process to be fast and transparent \u00a0so that Ghanaians will actually know what is happening. But the actions should speak loudly so that the monies and resourced used by the Public Accounts committee are not wasted and our recommendations\u00a0piled up in a file.\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n