Sammy Darko, the Director of Strategy, Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), has said President John Mahama cannot fire the Special Prosecutor and Deputy at his will.
According to Sammy Darko, the Special Prosecutor is granted a seven-year nonrenewable tenure.
He recounted that the First Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, also faced petitions seeking his removal, but they were dismissed.
Speaking on the Law programme on Joy News Sunday, December 14, Sammy Darko stated, “The lawmaker also granted fixed tenure of office for the special prosecutor, which is that the special prosecutor currently enjoys a seven-year nonrenewable tenure.
He cannot be fired at the will of the president, so the difference between the special prosecutor and the other agencies, such as the IGP or the EOCO head or the NIB head, is that whereas they can be fired at the will of the president, the special prosecutor cannot be fired at the will of the president.
The special prosecutor and the Deputy cannot be fired at the will of the president; that is why, in the past administration, two persons filed a petition to remove Martin Amidu, the first Special Prosecutor, but both petitions were dismissed as not having any grounds to initiate even investigations into the matter”.
He added, “Currently, you have other people who have filed other petitions that want to remove [Kissi Agyebneg]. That tells you the mechanism they put in place in the law, that is, the special prosecutor cannot be fired or hired at the will of the president. So tomorrow, for instance, the president, if he is not happy with the A-G or the EOCO boss, can fire them, but not the Special Prosecutor and the Deputy.”
“So far, the OSP has done remarkably well, if you look at how young it is. We do appreciate that people often want to measure the OSP from 2018 when it was set up, but the OSP has had teething problems with its setup. We see that the first Special Prosecutor did not complete his tenure and left office”.
Sammy Darko added, “[Kissi Agyebeng] decided to rebuild the office. What people do not know is that we have been building this office from scratch, which means apart from an empty building that was donated to the office, the office has to be built from scratch, which means you need to develop all the divisions of the office, employ people, you need to put in the infrastructure to be able to investigate.
“Kissi Agyebeng took over in 2021, and it was not until 2023 that the office had its full staff with realistic logistics to be able to work. Remember that the office was also set up without an establishment budget, so the office is being built from the annual budget, which is not enough. Even as we speak, we do not have a forensic lab.”
Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama, on December 10, 2025, had said that it is premature for the closure of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
During a courtesy visit by the National Peace Council, Mahama urged that the office be given more time to operate, whilst also encouraging the OSP to accelerate some of its investigations and demonstrate its continued relevance to the public.
Speaking during a meeting with the National Peace Council on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, explained, “I think it’s premature to call for the closure of that office. The unique thing about that office is it is the only anti-corruption agency that has prosecutorial powers to be able to prosecute themselves without going through the Attorney General and so people had mistrust for the Attorney General because the Attorney General normally is a member of government and is a Minister of State and so they believe that the Attorney General would be very reluctant to prosecute his own.
“But if there’s an independent office like the Office of the Special Prosecutor, it won’t matter who you are because they have security of tenure and they have prosecutorial powers whether you’re a member of government or you’re a member of a previous government or you are anybody who has misappropriated public funds, they have the law is behind them to be able to prosecute you”, he stated.