The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), has stated that it is still coming to terms with the teething problems of the office.

It said the office which has been in existence since 2017 is still being operationalised.

“What we are doing now is we are actually building the ship as we are sailing and it has been established but had not been set up and has not been operationalised,” the OSP bemoaned.

Kissi Agyebeng, the Special Prosecutor, revealed that not a single division was in place when he took over and the Special Prosecutor Act allowed for a Finance and Administration, Asset Recovery, Management, Investigations and Prosecutions Divisions.

He noted that dwelling on complaints would have been counterproductive and insisted that “if I was going to figure out why we do not have a Human Resource or why we do not have this division or why we do not have that division, I do not think it would have been helpful.

“One of the first steps in operationalising the office is moving to a new and spacious place because the absence of a bigger office would have prevented us from increasing my staff strength of nine and the main challenge was space.

“There was no space at the old office, so even if we are going to recruit today, the new staff will not get anywhere to sit, I do not have a board now, so for a lot of the issues, I need the board’s approval, for instance, when you talk about recruitment and other sensitive issues and what I can do at my level without the board’s input, I am doing them,” Mr Agyebeng indicated.

According to him, the issue of judgment debts, his office intended to tackle with seriousness they deserved, keen to work with civil society organisations and the public to identify and tackle issues related to corruption.

He disclosed that significant attention was also being paid to preventative measures and resources were being deployed towards public education and sensitisation and reiterated on steps being taken to operationalise the office, urgent staffing requirements, furnishing and equipping of the new 10-storey office complex.

“It is critical that our office puts in place systems that will enable us to effectively and efficiently execute our mandate,” he assured.