Executive Director for the Centre for Public Opinion and Awareness (CenPOA), Michael Donyina Mensah, has reacted to the decision by the President to grant amnesty or a presidential pardon to 998 prisoners.

He posited that including politicians in presidential pardons will incentivize corruption.

According to him, politicians will use this as a means to steal from the state with the hope that if they are jailed, their political parties will assume office later and grant them pardons.

Speaking on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM, he indicated that the organization would resist any attempt by the government to grant a pardon to politically exposed persons.

He has therefore announced that CenPOA will file a Right to Information petition demanding the names of all those who have been granted a pardon.

Michael Donyina Mensah said, “we will oppose any attempt by authorities to grant a pardon to politically exposed persons.”

He said the granting of pardons should not influence people to commit crimes with the hope of being granted pardons.

“In fact, if there is any politician, we will resist it. The list of pardoned prisoners cannot be out, but we want to state categorically that we will oppose the name of any politician on the list. We have our reasons for making this pronouncement. CenPOA will file an RTI and demand for the list.

"It has become a practice where people, especially the political class, act with impunity and even when they are jailed, they don’t care because they know their political parties will assume office and grant them presidential pardon and it is one of the enablers of corruption so if there are politicians, we will resist it. We will also take keen interest in future pardons that would be granted.”

Meanwhile, he also commended the President for granting the pardon but stressed that it was not enough, advocating that there was the need for us to introduce a non-custodial sentencing for minor crimes.

He said it was not every crime that should get people handed a custodial sentence since it was one of the reasons for the overcrowded prisons.

“The pardon is a first step but apart from the pardon let’s look at how we are going to reform our custodial system such that we would be able to not cramp up our prisons and send every little case to prison,” he said.