Former Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has questioned the legality and mandate of the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) committee.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu expressed concerns about the committee’s activities, describing them as inconsistent with Ghana’s constitutional framework and democratic principles.
He asserted that the country is not under a coup regime and emphasised the need for adherence to due process.
He criticised the committee’s approach, arguing that it lacks the authority to issue letters accusing individuals of “looting” state resources without conducting proper investigations or ensuring a fair trial.
The former Suame MP highlighted that Ghana’s democratic system requires established legal procedures to determine a person’s culpability. He insisted that no one should be deemed guilty without following these processes.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu urged the government to uphold the rule of law and due process in its efforts to recover state assets allegedly misappropriated by individuals.
In an interview with TV3 on Friday, January 17, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu asserted, “If you’re alleging looting, already you’ve established criminality against individuals. Is that what the Constitution provides? A person is deemed innocent until proven guilty. You’re saying that the person has looted, you’ve written a letter to the person, what authority do you have to do that?
“You’re shredding the image of the person and yet you’ve not established through any due process, the fact that the person has engaged in any criminality. Not because there is a new regime, but because there is no coup in Ghana. We are not in a coup regime. Everything, we should resort to due process.
“A person has a right to own his property. If you think that he used unorthodox means to acquire the property, let’s resort to due process and retrieve it for the state. But you don’t take this into your own hands to say that at the very outset, you’ve established criminality and the person has looted even before the person probably investigated and tried. What kind of system is that?”
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