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0 The Office was created to confront a specific and persistent problem: high-level corruption that ordinary enforcement mechanisms had struggled to address for decades. Its task was never going to be easy.
It was designed to operate within a justice system where complex criminal trials move slowly, where procedural objections can stall progress, where courts observe extended recess periods, and where case management has not always imposed firm timelines or safeguards against delay. In such an environment, accountability is not dramatic work. It is patient work.
By its very nature, the Office must also investigate politically exposed persons. That reality alone guarantees controversy. In a polarised environment, every investigative step is interpreted through a partisan lens.
When the office is quiet, critics say it has lost direction. When it acts, critics say it is targeting. The very mandate that makes the institution necessary also makes it vulnerable to suspicion.
Yet the Office has worked. Quietly at times, visibly at others, but steadily.
It has secured convictions and recovered significant sums through negotiated resolutions. Multiple criminal trials are ongoing. Dozens of investigations remain active. Hundreds of millions of cedis in questionable transactions have been prevented or saved.
Corruption networks within key public institutions have been disrupted. Matters have been referred for further recovery and enforcement. Some suspects, faced with scrutiny, have fled rather than account.
These are not the signs of an office adrift. They are the marks of an institution doing the difficult work it was created to do. From its inception, however, the Office has had to defend its own existence. Legal debates have questioned its constitutional design and its place within our governance architecture.
At the same time, the Special Prosecutor has faced repeated attempts at removal. Six petitions have failed at the prima facie stage. That record does not reveal wrongdoing; it reveals the resistance that inevitably confronts anybody tasked with scrutinizing entrenched power.
No accountability institution matures under constant existential contest. Institutions gain authority through continuity, predictability, and the public confidence that comes when they are allowed to function without perpetual disruption.
We must therefore move beyond treating the Office as a political instrument to be applauded when it acts and doubted when it pauses.
Its work requires navigating perilous waters while holding the powerful to account. The measure of such an institution is not noise. It is persistence. Investigations take time. Prosecutions take time. Deterrence takes even longer.
If we truly intend to create an independent mechanism to confront corruption at the highest levels, then we must provide the conditions that allow it to succeed.
That means improving the environment around the work: reforming criminal trial procedures, strengthening asset recovery systems, setting clearer timelines, and reducing the interlocutory delays that frustrate justice.
This is not about making the Office’s job easy, nor about weakening due process. It is about ensuring fair and timely trials, even when the accused are powerful.
Institutions are not strengthened by constant challenges to their legitimacy. They are strengthened when they are allowed to perform their mandate, under the law, and in the public interest.
