A retired criminal prosecutor, Chief Inspector Edward Afful, says the state must urgently resource prosecutors for them to fully discharge their duties.
Most prosecutors, Chief Insp. Afful noted, are exposed to crime due to their responsibility to ensure society is criminal-free.
He observed that there are dangers of gang members whose colleagues are facing prosecution because they could use any means available to tamper with evidence gathered by the prosecution once the officers are adequately tooled.
Using himself as an example, the officer who retired from the Service after serving 20 years, said that for 11 years he worked in the national capital as a criminal prosecutor and he was not accommodated.
As the officer who institutes legal proceedings against criminal offenders, Chief Inspector Afful said he didn’t have an office where he could operate from. He always carried his files home after court and did same the other way round.
“The person who is exposed to crime [most] is the police prosecutor who is keen to ensure that the law is working. So if you are a police prosecutor who doesn’t know what you are doing you will be losing all your cases,” he told Daniel Dadzie, host of Super Morning Show on Joy FM, Wednesday, August 29, 2018.
He lamented: “If you are not accommodated and you close [from work] and you are going home, you could have other people [criminals] following you and you would not know.”
His comments follow a revelation of frequent break-ins at the offices of the Ministry of Justice and Attorney-General in Accra by some unknown persons.
Investigator Frederick Asiamah, of Corruption Watch segment on the Super Morning Show reported that incidence of burglary at the A-G’s office has led to concerns about tampering with the integrity of the prosecutorial processes, as well as the security and safety of the officers of the A-G’s department.
Read: Thieves break into A-G’s offices; 5 laptops, printer, TV stolen
Commenting on the development at the A-G’s office, Security Analyst, Adam Bonah, described the situation as “terrible” and “unfortunate”.
Mr. Bonah said it is time the state considered security at institutions as a serious issue and invest in it. According to the Analyst, “there’s no handbook for security and safety within government establishments” and this he advised should be attended to immediately.
“If a guard is put at the A-G’s department and he is paid maybe 300 cedis a month and you are prosecuting me for about a billion dollars, don’t you think that if I give him 5000 cedis he can steal these systems for me?”
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