Kofi Bentil, Vice President of IMANI Africa, has criticised the Court of Appeal’s decision to acquit and discharge former MASLOC CEO Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, warning that the ruling could deepen public suspicion that politically exposed individuals avoid accountability when governments change.
Speaking on Keypoints with Alfred Ocansey, Mr Bentil said he respected the need to give judges the benefit of the doubt, but argued that the outcome raised serious questions about Ghana’s efforts to combat corruption.
“Justice must not just be done, it must be seen to have been done.”
Mr Bentil acknowledged that criminal prosecutions can contain procedural errors. However, he said such shortcomings should not be allowed to destroy attempts to hold public officials responsible for alleged wrongdoing.
He said he was increasingly concerned by what he described as a recurring pattern in which politicians publicly forecast the outcome of legal proceedings before judgments are delivered, with later court decisions appearing to match those predictions.
One case, he accepted, was not enough to establish a definite trend. But he argued that repeated incidents could not simply be dismissed.
Mr Bentil referred to other politically sensitive matters, including cases connected to the banking sector and prosecutions discontinued through nolle prosequi. In his view, those developments had contributed to a growing perception that political changes influence the fate of corruption cases.
“There is a clear trend that the smart thing to do, if you get into trouble, is to find a way to escape and wait for your political party to return to power.”
He said the latest ruling risked sending the wrong message to the public about the fight against corruption. The central issue, he argued, should be whether an offence had been committed, rather than allowing technical or procedural failings to remove criminal liability altogether.
Mr Bentil maintained that a single charge, if properly supported by evidence, could have been enough to produce a conviction.
“One charge alone is enough to put somebody in jail.”
The IMANI Africa Vice President also questioned the standard of criminal prosecutions in prominent corruption cases. He called for prosecutors to improve the preparation and presentation of their cases so that potentially credible allegations were not lost because of procedural weaknesses.
He said concerns about prosecutorial competence had existed for some time and that inadequate case preparation had repeatedly weakened efforts to secure accountability.
“Our prosecutors must be careful because the way they proceed can allow even guilty people to walk free.”
Mr Bentil further challenged the Court of Appeal’s interpretation of Section 406 of the Courts Act. He argued that the provision placed more importance on the substance of a case than on technical defects in the way it had been brought.
He said he had not been convinced that the alleged flaws in the charge sheet were sufficiently fundamental to justify overturning the entire prosecution.
“I was looking for where the defects went to the substance of the case, and I did not see it.”
According to Mr Bentil, dismissing every charge on procedural grounds could damage confidence in Ghana’s justice system.
He also criticised the way MASLOC had been managed over successive governments, saying the institution had been left exposed to political interference. Concerns about the organisation, he said, went back many years and included repeated allegations that loans had been given to politically connected people who did not repay them.
For Mr Bentil, the continuing controversy surrounding MASLOC demonstrated the need for wider institutional reforms.
