Amidu saga: Evidence abound to prove that Presidency was committed - Kweku Baako

Managing Editor of the Crusading Guide Newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, has proffered that information available to him indicates that the notion that the Presidency did not collaborate with Martin Amidu to address the operational and logistical challenges he encountered is erroneous.

According to him, both the Presidency and the Office of the Special Prosecutor showed enough commitment to ensure that Martin Amidu had access to a befitting office and other things needed to make his office fully functional.

He said on Joy News that exchanges between Amidu’s vacated office and the office of the Chief Staff prove that they both were bent on making the OSP a success.

“My scrutiny of some official documents and records points to the fact that there was no lack of commitment from the Presidency to collaborate with the Office of the Special Prosecutor and the Special Prosecutor himself to deliver an efficient office in terms of accommodation, offices and stuff.”

“Abundance exchange of communication between the OSP and the Presidency particularly the Chief of Staff office shows that both sides apparently had a certain commitment to deliver on the office,” Baako said on this week’s edition of Newsfile.

Martin Amidu, in his resignation letter, lamented that two years after he was appointed by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he was still operating in a make-shift office.

The President, however, responded with a reminder to Amidu of how he frustrated the government’s attempt to get him an office and accommodation.

President Akufo-Addo said that Amidu rejected various accommodation and offices which were recommended by the government.

“On 14 September 2020, you wrote to the Chief of Staff conveying your refusal ‘to take possession of a bunch of keys disrespectfully sent to your Office in an envelope through a messenger and to ask the messenger to return them to the sender’,” a statement from the presidency in response to Mr Amidu stated. “The Chief of Staff by another letter dated 18 September 2020, explained to you the reason for delivery of the keys to you in an envelope and urged you to reconsider your rejection of the keys.”

“With the greatest respect, your decision not to accept the keys to the 10 storey building identified by you and renovated after rejecting other buildings jointly identified with you, is very troubling and does not reflect a desire to establish an operational office for the Special Prosecutor”.

“Indeed, your behaviour, in connection with the acquisition of suitable accommodation for the Office of Special Prosecutor, remains inexplicable and unwarranted,” part of the statement read.