A member of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, has suggested that prosecutorial powers be given to the committee to enable it to take more instructive and punitive actions on the several cases of financial malfeasance that are exposed during their sittings.
He explained that this is very possible, just as some other state institutions have been allowed by legislation to do.
Responding to a question on why it seems like after all the exposures that the Public Accounts Committee makes, there are never any prosecutions made, Dafeamekpor, who is also the Member of Parliament for South Dayi, told Daniel Oduro, host of The Lowdown on GhanaWeb TV, that there are a lot of processes ought to be followed before such matters get to the committee.
He also indicated that a lot of the justifications that people make before the PAC sittings are things that should have been done at the level of auditors.
Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, however, stated that there is a need for a redesign
of the framework of the committee of parliament to get more prosecutions done.
‘As a member, it’s a lot of pain for me, that we need to redesign the legal framework regarding how the Public Accounts Committee should work. In fact, I am one of the people who are saying that we should even have a prosecutorial sub-committee so that they will handle prosecution.
‘Pursuant to the powers under Article 88 for the Attorney General, now we have ECG having the prosecutorial department, ECG now prosecutes people who steal power. So, by legislation, we can do it; parliament can enact a law and say that the Public Accounts Committee should have a prosecutorial committee with lawyers so that when the issues come, we will prosecute you in court. It can be done,’ he said.
The South Dayi MP also explained some of the bottlenecks that currently exist in the work of the PAC, including the expectations of the Attorney General’s office that give off the impression that the committee cannot bite.
Source: Ghana Web
