Consulting the Attorney General before investigating Madam Cecilia Dapaah would have been a better approach, according to Mr Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, Deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
He said, this was because of the nature of the case, the complaint and amount of money involved and level of public interest.
Mr. Tuah-Yeboah made the comments a discussion on an Accra-based television station on the topic, “CECE DAPAAH $1M: Lifestyle Audit, Money Laundering, Code of Conduct Bill.”
The Deputy AG, however, said the Police were not wrong to have carried out investigations since they had the power to do so but approaching the AG on the matter would have helped.
“The AG has exclusive authority by the constitution to initiate all criminal prosecutions on behalf of the republic.
However, He is not able to prosecute all the cases and in view of that various entities or bodies have been given the permission to prosecute cases on its behalf and one of such institutions is the Police.”
“The AG office does not investigate cases-that lie with the Police and other security bodies so in the event that a complaint is lodged with the Police, they would have to investigate and after that go to court and prosecute on behalf of the AG,” he said.
He said the AG’s request for the case docket would not interfere with the work of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
“The OSP Act allows the OSP to investigate corruption related matters, procurement, lifestyle audit, etc. We are rather looking at stealing, dishonestly receiving, conspiracy amongst others. So, there is no attempt whatsoever to be in conflict with the work of the OSP,” he said.
Mr. Tuah-Yeboah said after reviewing the docket, the AG might advise that the charges should be maintained, dropped or amended (thus, the charges may either increase or decrease or new charges may emerge).
He said the AG could also advise the Police to conduct further investigation into areas that had been overlooked.
“Officers at the AG are still reviewing the docket and afterwards, any one of these options may be activated. Possibly, within about a week or two, the AG would issue a letter to give advice on what should be done,” he said.