The last ‘Epistle of Amidu is long in emotions and short in deeds’ – Kwaku Azar

General news for Sunday, November 29, 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

2020-11-29

Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly called Kwaku Azar, has said that the last epistle of the former Special Prosecutor has little to do with the facts of the issues raised.

Asare, a member of Public Law and Justice at the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), indicated that the 27-page response the Special Prosecutor wrote to the president’s response to his resignation was full of emotions.

“This epistle is long on emotions and short on deeds. Paragraph 34 is evidence of a ‘ban’ (an extrajudicial sighting of someone at the jubilee house that is seen as proof that a conspiracy is being hatched to discredit him), ”wrote Kwaku Asare.

He then advised Martin Amidu to keep his epistles “short, simple, relevant, and objective.”

In paragraph 34 of Martin Amidu’s 27-page response to the president, the Watchful Citizen wrote: “I heard and read Dr. Henry K. Prempeh, the Executive Director of CDD Ghana, sell the same falsehoods that he has repeated in his paragraph 10 on Joy FM, which was reported online on November 14, 2020 under the title: ‘Airbus Scandal: Martin Amidu Had No Excuse Not To Prosecute Mahama.’ This was after I had seen him in the Presidency in the company of two other attorneys one business day prior to his engagement on Saturday November 14, 2020 on Joy FM, condemning my legitimate exercise of discretion as Special Counsel after taking all matters relevant under consideration. Dr. Henry K. Prempeh knows that I know he is a friend of the President and I told him so in two meetings CDD held with me in my old office to use that influence to help the Office. “

But in a response, Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh wrote on his Facebook timeline that the former Special Counsel’s point in the paragraph suggested that Prempeh had acted as an agent of the president in expressing the generally balanced and focused views on the governance was totally unnecessary innuendo.

Prempeh explained that on Tuesday, November 10, he was at Jubilee House in the afternoon in the company of retired judge Date-Baah and all the members of the Law Reform Commission, all of them lawyers.

Prempeh explained that he is part of the Law Reform Commission, and that November 10, the Commission was in the Presidency for a scheduled appointment with the President to discuss Commission matters.

“That was the only item on the agenda, and the meeting was held with some of the media and the Deputy Attorney General and two officials of the President present. I didn’t say anything at the meeting. And it was not a long meeting. I think we left the place in 45 minutes. We went to Jubilee House together as a Commission and we hung out together, albeit in our separate cars. “

Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh further denied having had a personal meeting with President Akufo-Addo after the meeting “and had no reason to expect it.”

Prempeh clarified: “I do not have that kind of access or relationship with the Presidency, contrary to the insinuation in paragraph 34 by Mr. Amidu. The last time prior to November 10 that I had the privilege of briefly interacting with the President was at a Ghana Bar Association webinar / conference held in the Courthouse Complex Auditorium on Monday, September 14, 2020, at whose event the President was the guest of honor and I the keynote speaker. I do not remember the last time I was in the Presidency before the meeting of the Legislative Reform Commission of November 10 with the President, but I think it was at the end of 2019, in a meeting between the Vice President and a section of civil society in relation to the referendum on the election of MMDCE ”.

Then he observed, “It’s a pretty strange suggestion, to say the least. My views on Agyapa are well known and I made them public long before the announcement that the OSP was conducting a ‘corruption risk assessment’ of the proposed transaction, a novel idea that I have also publicly supported, albeit not in the way it became. in this initial instance “.

Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh noted that in all his public comments since Martin Amidu’s resignation as Special Counsel, he had endeavored to examine the issues that arose from Amidu’s resignation from a broader governance perspective, avoiding ad hominem.

Kwasi Prempeh emphasized: “Needless to say, I am surprised to see that my name appears so spontaneously and unnecessarily on Mr. Amidu’s latest pitch after his resignation. There is no basis for that suggestion or conclusion. In fact, it would be out of place for me to do what paragraph 34 of Mr. Amidu suggests. Even sadder for me is that this post hoc detour by [my] My friend, Mr Amidu, my getting into the fray doesn’t help the fight against corruption at all. In fact, that fight hurts immensely. “