The government says it has drafted a new bill to expand the mandate of the Serious Fraud Office which will be known as Serious and Organised Crime Office. The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Joe Ghartey, announced this yesterday when he inaugurated a six member board of directors of the SFO. He said the expansion of the mandate of the office has become necessary following the crime wave in the country and the increase in cyber crimes or internet fraud. These new crimes, according to the minister, posed a challenge to the state and required an institution to deal with them. He said after studying the various options available in other countries where separate institutions exist to deal with organised crimes, it was agreed that the "SFO should be transformed into a Serious and Organised Crime Office." Consequently, he charged the new board to work together with the staff to push the bill. . That notwithstanding, he said, if the board came to the conclusion that a separate institution was a better option "please do not hesitate to recommend it." Mr Ghartey explained that the new face being proposed for the SFO would need an institutional change that would involve the engagement of more people to take care of the new mandate. The occasion was also used to introduce a new Acting Executive Director, Edward Agyeman Duodu, formerly of the AG's department, to the staff. His introduction was met with loud applause from the staff. The Attorney-General was grateful to the outgoing acting director, Mr. Theophilus Cudjoe, for his immense contribution to the office. Mr Cudjoe who was not present at the ceremony has been seconded to the Ministry of Justice, as a policy adviser on Serious and Organised Crime. He entreated the staff to support the new acting executive director and the board so that together, they would discharge their constitutional mandate. The new board has as its chairman, Justice R. T. Aninakwah, a retired Supreme Court Judge. Other members are Benjamin Botwe, Executive Secretary of Narcotic Control Board NACOB and Mrs Elizabeth Mills Robertson, Deputy Inspector General of Police. The rest are Alex Nii Quaynor, a private legal practitioner, William Kpobi from the AG's department in Kumasi and the ,Acting director of SFO. Source: Ghanaian Times