{"id":106634,"date":"2025-12-13T11:46:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T11:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=106634"},"modified":"2025-12-13T11:46:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T11:46:29","slug":"calls-to-abolish-osp-are-hasty-and-unwarranted-bobby-banson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=106634","title":{"rendered":"Calls to abolish OSP are hasty and unwarranted \u2013 Bobby Banson"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>1 Minute, 58 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><div>\n<p>Lawyer and lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Bobby Banson, has backed President John Mahama\u2019s assertion that calls for the abolition of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) are premature.<\/p>\n<p>He insisted that the institution continues to play a vital role in Ghana\u2019s anti-corruption framework.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on<strong><em> Joy News\u2019 Newsfile<\/em><\/strong> programme on Saturday, Mr Banson said the OSP, established by law in 2017, is still a relatively young institution and must be given time to achieve optimum efficiency. <\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>READ ALSO: <\/strong>Resource AG office to fight corruption, abolish OSP \u2013 Majority Leader<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cI agree with His Excellency the President when he said the call for its abolition is premature,\u201d Mr Banson remarked. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must accept that the OSP, the law itself, came into being in 2017. Less than 10 years, there is no institution that has achieved optimum efficiency within 10 years of its establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He acknowledged that the office has faced challenges but argued that these should not be interpreted as failure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am not saying that the office of the OSP has excelled, but I don\u2019t think that it has failed,\u201d Mr Banson said. \u201cAs a statutory office, it takes time. It was established to fill a gap in the prosecutorial powers of the Attorney-General. Until the office of the Attorney-General is decoupled from the Ministry of Justice, there may not always be the political will for an Attorney-General to prosecute members of his own political party.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Mr Banson stressed that isolated unfavourable court decisions should not be used as a basis to dismantle the institution.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> It\u2019s premature to call for the scrapping of OSP \u2013 President Mahama<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cIf we insist on letting the OSP go because there has been one or two unfavourable court decisions, then I ask myself what happens to all other state institutions that we have invested in since independence, which many complain have not met their obligations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He called on citizens, the media, and political actors to focus on strengthening the institution rather than attacking individuals in leadership positions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of the narrative has been directed at the persons in charge instead of looking at the institution that the framers of the act sought to establish,\u201d Mr Banson noted. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cGhana is not the only country that has an independent prosecutor with this mandate or framework.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n        <div class=\"booster-block booster-reactions-block\">\n            <div class=\"twp-reactions-icons\">\n                \n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-1\" post-id=\"106634\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/happy.svg\" alt=\"Happy\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Happy                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                            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loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Calls to abolish OSP are hasty and unwarranted - Bobby Banson\">Lawyer and lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Bobby Banson, has backed President John Mahama\u2019s assertion that calls for the abolition of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) are premature.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8466,1883,335,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bobby-banson","category-national","category-osp","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}