Dr John Osae-Kwapong, a Fellow at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), has urged Ghana to break the cycle where every investigation involving high-profile public figures is viewed through a political lens.
He said the country’s political appointment system makes it difficult for citizens to distinguish between legitimate administrative actions and politically motivated decisions.
He said the concern raised by NDC legal team member Abraham Amaliba about separating the conduct of state institutions from politics was valid.
However, he stressed that the challenge begins with the fact that the heads of many state institutions are political appointees.
“When there is a turnover election, you do see some turnover in who is appointed heads of these institutions, and then it is when the cases involve these high-profile or these politically-exposed persons, either a very prominent party official or they may have served in government.”
According to him, those circumstances introduce another layer, making it difficult to view such cases strictly as administrative actions by state institutions.
“All of those things throw in another range and another dynamic that makes it challenging to think of this purely as state administrative behaviour.”
Dr Osae-Kwapong agreed that if such situations continue to occur, Ghana must begin to rethink how its institutions operate.
“I agree that if it happens consistently, then we must begin to think about how those administrative behaviours can change.”
He argued that the political nature of appointments makes it easy for the public to attribute political motives to state officials’ actions.
“But it also has that political dimension to it that lends itself easily for bystanders to read political meaning into the actions of these administrative officials in our state institutions.”
He described that as the central tension Ghana must resolve.
“That, for me, would continue, or at least is the tension that we have to find a way to reconcile. How do we prevent making the appointing authority politically vulnerable to the actions of a state actor that yes he may have appointed, but may not even have sanctioned those behaviours.”
Responding to questions about accountability within institutions such as the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Dr Osae-Kwapong said that responsibility does not rest with a single individual.
“I think there are multiple layers of accountability in all of this.”
He explained that appointing authorities have a duty to act if they repeatedly verify complaints that state institutions are violating the Constitution.
“If I have made someone the head, the administrative head of a state institution, but I’m seeing a repeated behaviour of things that offends the Constitution, then as the appointing authority, one of the lines of accountability is to say maybe I need to rethink that decision.”
He added that officials who directly supervise such institutions also have an obligation to intervene.
“Whoever that institution reports to directly also has a certain level of accountability in pulling the person back to say some of these actions are not proper, or they do offend the constitution.”
Dr Osae-Kwapong maintained that accountability is shared across several actors. However, he said investigations involving politically exposed persons will continue to attract political interpretations, particularly after changes in government.
“The accountability lines are layered across a number of individuals. But again, it goes back to because we tend to see these things become highly visible because of the persons involved, because it also seems to follow a pattern of turnover elections that it becomes difficult to separate the administrative issues from the political issues.”