Anti-Corruption Campaigner, Vitus Azeem, has urged the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, to avoid using unorthodox means to appoint people to the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

According to him, such unconventional methods undermine the integrity and the trust people have in the anti-corruption institution.

His concern follows an allegation by Col. Damoah of the Ghana Revenue Authority Customs Division that the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, had been trying to recruit someone from the Customs Division to the OSP.

According to Col. Damoah, the ongoing investigation into the activities of the Customs Division is payback for refusing to approve the transfer of his staff to the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

Commenting on the accusation, Vitus Azeem noted that whereas it is true that the OSP is severely under resourced and under staffed to work at full capacity, trying to recruit staff through shady means is rather uncalled for and speaks poorly of the Office.

“We also have to agree that he does not have the necessary resources, both human and material, to meet our expectation. And so while we are assessing the Special Prosecutor or his office, we also need to put pressure or to appeal to the government to give him the necessary resources to do his work,” he said on JoyNews’ PM Express.

He continued, “For example, when you look at what Col. Damoah said about one Mr. Akurugu, it was like he was going round to institutions begging for secondment of staff. This is not good enough for an anti-corruption institution.

“Because as an anti-corruption institution, he should be able to advertise publicly through the Public Service Commission, adopt a transparent and miscellaneous approach to recruit his staff so that people will have the confidence in the institution.

“So if he has been begging for secondment of staff that is not the best. So the Ministry of Finance needs to give him the clearance to recruit the people that he needs and he too must adopt a transparent process.”

He added that the Special Prosecutor recruiting from within his close circles also undermines the independence of staff at the office and this adversely affects the work they do there.

“You know, Martin Amidu’s letter talks about he recruiting his friends and that kind of thing. And as an anti-corruption institution that should be avoided completely.

“He should not allow anybody to accuse him of using unorthodox methods of appointing people to the institution because when you do that people lose confidence in you and the people coming in will not be independent enough to know their worth because they will see that it’s a favour that you have done to them. So these are some of the issues that I think that we need to look at,” he said.