Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu has revealed that it took his personal effort to get an allocation in the 2019 budget, which was presented to Parliament Thursday, November 15, 2018 by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
According to him, he sole-handedly got people to help him prepare his office’s budget, which he presented to Mr Ofori-Atta after he had waited without getting any request from the government to bring a budget.
He said he prepared the budget in October, barely a month before the presentation by the Minister of Finance.
“I was almost forgotten about,” he told journalists in an interview exactly a year after the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, nominated him as the Special Prosecutor.
He, however, noted that the finance minister has been very helpful to his office because he understands the situation of the office.
“But we are lucky we have a gentleman as a finance minister who understands my plight,” Mr. Amidu said.
He added that was not the only time he took an initiative to get money for his office as he disclosed how he went to the finance minister last year and got some GH¢3 million allocation for his office, albeit receiving only GH¢1 million.
“I went there on my own, and were allocated 3 million, only one million was given to us and the 2 million sent to the Attorney General’s office.”
After a year since he was named the Special Prosecutor and without any prosecutions yet, the public wonders what is happening to the office that was touted as the panacea to corruption in Ghana.
But the man who referred to himself as Citizen Vigilante in the regime of former president John Dramani Mahama, stated that even though his works are not yet out in the public, he is working on the quiet.
In that regard, he disclosed that his office has collaborated with the Economic and Organised Crime (EOCO) and has finished some investigations.
He would, however, wish to have independent investigation because “once you do it with others you lose control” and he would not want to cede his powers as special prosecutor.
By P.D Wedam|3news.com|Ghana
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