Why refusing to comply with OSP’s invitations could land you in jail

If you refuse to comply with the orders of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), you could just land yourself in jail. That is the assertion of lawyer, Bobby Banson.

According to the private legal practitioner, any such disobedience by any citizen could land them between two to four years in prison.

Speaking in an interview, the lawyer explained that this is so because according to the OSP Act, refusing to appear before the Special Prosecutor can also warrant a fine.

This, he added, is because such an act is equal to an offence, a report by myjoyonline.com has said.

“When you are invited by the OSP and you do not comply with that invitation or the OSP requires your presence or requires you to bring a document and you do not honour that invitation, that in itself is an offence in the OSP Act.

“The OSP Act says that if you refuse to comply with the lawful demand of the OSP… so, it could be an invitation. So, if they invite you and you exercise your right that I will not honour the invitation, I believe they will go to the next step which will be to require your presence,” he explained.

Bobby Banson added that in practice, the OSP has the power to order the arrest of people, even without a warrant.

“Looking at the powers of the OSP, the OSP can arrest you, investigate you, and exercise lots of powers under the Act without necessarily going for court orders to do so,” he added, the report said.

Bobby Banson was reacting to the declaration of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) that the former Secretary of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Bissue, was Wanted.

The June 13, 2023, notice is on the back of an earlier court order that had been secured for the arrest of Bissue, since he failed to honour its invitation to appear before it in May.

But speaking with GhanaWeb, Charles Bissue stated that he was not on the run.

He expressed shock at the fact that the OSP had declared him Wanted, adding that it felt as though he was a criminal who was on the run.

“I’m shocked by it because I wasn’t in Accra and I knew they had invited me and there are other issues going on, and all that, but then, you know in the past, I’ve been to the BNI, to the CID, and even the Special Prosecutor’s Office when Martin Amidu was there, I went there.

“So, it wasn’t as if I was avoiding attending that interview,” he explained.

Explaining why he has not been able to honour the invitation by the OSP yet, Charles Bissue said it is a simple case of not immediately being in Accra.

He stressed that it comes to him as a shock, especially when the OSP’s declaration of him as Wanted paints a picture as though he is a criminal or a fugitive.

“What happened is that I was out of Accra, so my lawyers have written to them that I will come and then we heard of the arrest warrant. Basically, I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m in Ghana and I’ll go to the Special Prosecutor’s office at some point when I return to Accra, but to declare me Wanted, I don’t know why, as if I’m a fugitive… but the whole thing is making it look like I’m a criminal,” he stated.

Charles Bissue stressed that he is not on the run and that he is ready to provide all the necessary information the Office of the Special Prosecutor would need to help with its work.

He assured the OSP that he would definitely show up at their offices to help with their work.

“Visiting all these agencies and all that, the Ghanaian perception is that the fact that you go to these places means that you are a criminal. No. Every information I have, I’ll volunteer in the interest of the country so, I haven’t run away anywhere. I’m within the country, and even when I was out of the jurisdiction last year, I have so many visas, I could have stayed out of the country if I had anything to hide,” he added.

The OSP is investigating issues related to the report submitted by Prof Kwabena Fimpong-Boateng on its work on the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) in Ghana.

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AE/DA