Corruption Has Become Costly –OSP

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), under the leadership of Kissi Agyebeng, recorded major financial recoveries and intensified prosecutions in the second half of 2025, even as it faced an unprecedented parliamentary attempt to abolish the institution.

The Office led high-impact investigations, filed significant cases before the courts, seized and managed tainted assets and expanded corruption-prevention initiatives across the public sector during the period.

According to the OSP, corruption has become costly because of these measures. The details are contained in the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s Half Yearly Report for December 2025, as sighted by The Chronicle.

One of the most consequential interventions was the cancellation of procurement and revenue-assurance contracts awarded by the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Ministry of Finance to Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited.

The OSP’s investigations, conducted between 2023 and 2025, prevented potential losses to the state estimated at GH¢5.73 billion.

In a separate intervention, a 2025 corruption-risk assessment into disinfection services at Ghana’s ports of entry conducted between the Ghana Health Service and LCB Worldwide Ghana Limited saved the Republic an estimated GH¢345 million.

These gains were recorded amid intense institutional pressure. At the height of the OSP’s interventions, a private member’s bill was introduced in Parliament seeking to abolish the Office and transfer its mandate to the Attorney-General’s Department, citing alleged inefficiencies and duplication of functions.

The bill was later withdrawn after President John Dramani Mahama publicly called for its withdrawal.

Commenting on the episode, Mr Kissi Agyebeng said the President’s intervention reaffirmed the principle of institutional independence in the fight against corruption.

“The Attorney-General, being a member of Cabinet and chief legal adviser to Government, is not structurally positioned to investigate and prosecute members of the same government,” he stated.

By December 2025, the Special Prosecutor said the Office had saved the Republic more than twenty times the total public funds released to it since its establishment in 2018, despite persistent budgetary and resource constraints.

“It simply cannot be maintained that the Office has not performed as expected or that it is a drain on national resources,” he said.

The report noted that at the time the abolition bill was introduced, the OSP was actively prosecuting 33 accused persons across courts nationwide, managing substantial seized movable and immovable assets, securing notable cash recoveries, and investigating over 100 corruption-related cases.

Beyond prosecutions, the Office intensified preventive measures, including compliance checks, ethics and integrity guidance for public institutions, stakeholder engagements and nationwide Youth Against Corruption campaigns.

“No one now engages in corruption lightly,” Mr Agyebeng said. “Corruption has become costly, and that in itself is a measure of deterrence.”

Operational activity remained high throughout the period, with several complex investigations nearing completion, major cases filed, and extradition requests for two fugitive accused persons transmitted through the Attorney-General to authorities in the United States.

Mr Kissi Agyebeng cautioned against dismantling young institutions still in their formative years, arguing that operational challenges should be addressed through support rather than abolition.

“The answer is careful nurturing, adequate resourcing, and removal of operational handicaps, not condemnation and dismantling,” he said.

The Special Prosecutor expressed gratitude to citizens, institutions and partners who stood by the Office during what he described as an unprecedented period of pressure, insisting that Ghana’s fight against corruption remains “fully alive and forcefully active.”

 

 

 

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