The nominee for the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) Kissi Agyebeng, has refuted claims that he was a surrogate for a law firm involved in the controversial Agyapa deal.

He told Parliament's Appointment Committee during his vetting on Thursday that those making such claims are "uninformed."

"Those saying I am a surrogate of a law firm or implicate me in the Agyapa transaction clearly do not know me. Because if you know me, you won’t make such allegations. And all these things that came up, I took it as coming from uninformed positions.

"Because I was not involved in Agyapa transactions in any form or manner or any stretch of the imagination, however, fertile," he said.

Before the Agyapa deal was thrown out during the 7^th Parliament, former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu’s Corruption Risk Assessment on Agyapa deal raised red flags over the deal, saying the deal was fraught with corruption.

Mr Amidu’s assessment triggered several calls from Ghanaians and some civil society organisations, for a suspension of the deal, insisting it was not in the interest of Ghana.

In April this year, the anti-graft campaigner in one of his epistles described Mr Agyebeng as a surrogate of people who defended the controversial Agyapa Mineral royalties deal.

“The Agyapa Royalties Transaction records show the role the President’s cousin who established Africa Legal Associates, and Asaase Radio, played with White & Case LLP, of London, one of the foreign law firms in the suspected corruption transaction. It must, therefore, be worrying to any patriotic Ghanaian not afraid of the culture of silence to see Asaase Radio undertaking political propaganda beginning on 25th April 2021 to 26th April 2021 to prepare the minds of the Ghanaian and international public to accept the surrogate of the alter ego of the Asaase Radio station and Africa Legal Associates as the Special Prosecutor as mandated under section 4(1) of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2018 (Act 959).

"In the attempt of persons implicated in the Agyapa Royalties Transaction corruption assessment report to pressurize the President to appoint their surrogate as the Special Prosecutor to safeguard their interests, the online reportage of Asaase Radio resorted to direct fabrications, lies, and omissions against me in its narration of the reasons for my resignation," Mr Amidu wrote.

But the nominee has described such comments as uninformed.

"As for relationships, as I just disclosed, the fact that I was so close to you at some point in our lives will not give you a free pass because of that relationship and that is why am here.

"And if there is a matter am not going to say because I know one person or the other I am not going to investigate the matter. I certainly will investigate. But the truth of the matter ought to be told. I was not involved in the deal. I was nowhere near it.

"Indeed until it started coming up I didn’t know what it was. For the record that is the truth. And so I am no one’s surrogate as I said earlier. I am my own man and I prefer to wear my own shoes. If the law firm was named, it would have even been fair to me. But if you say I am a surrogate of a law firm, clearly you don’t know me. I run my own law firm and I have been running it since 2014.