Ghanaians not ready to fight corruption – Kissi Agyebeng

Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng has raised concerns about Ghana’s collective commitment to fighting corruption, stating that public attitudes and resistance toward anti-corruption efforts suggest the nation is not truly ready for the battle.

Speaking at the Constitution Day Public Lecture under the theme “A Few Good Men: Suppressing and Repressing Corruption and State Capture in Aid of Development,” Agyebeng highlighted the contradictions in the public response to corruption enforcement.

He lamented that while Ghanaians broadly acknowledge the need to combat corruption, some factions actively seek to undermine the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and its mandate.

“There have been attempts to discredit the principles of the office and its officers, unjustly attended by formidable resistance and push back. Often the attacks on the office and its principals are done by persons who are at the short end of investigation or prosecution, and the associates of such persons.

“The effect of the existential challenge confronting the OSP is that though the nation collectively acknowledges that we must fight corruption, yet there is also a section that the flagship agency designed, even if imperfectly, to fight corruption, is not needed and should be disbanded while others actively undermine it and its principal officers,” he stated.

Agyebeng described this contradiction as a “curious cycle,” where the public protests both when the OSP takes action and when it is perceived as inactive.

“This has translated into a rather curious cycle; there is an outcry when the OSP acts and an outcry when it is seen as not acting. It is as if we do not know what we want. The situation in Ghana now appears to be like ‘we must fight corruption but we must not fight corruption, that is our state now,” Kissi Agyeben added.