Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has stated that the Mahama government combining the Office of the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice was wrong.
According to Asiedu Nketia, Ghana should have an Attorney General separate from the Minister of Justice.
He asserted that the Attorney General should be non-political and independent of the political system.
The NDC chairman argued that the Attorney General, being a member of the cabinet, makes it difficult for him to prosecute members of the administration who engage in corrupt activities.
He boldly asserted that having the same person as Attorney General and Minister of Justice hampers the country’s fight against corruption.
“From hindsight, I think that we were wrong in combining the Office of the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice. This is because you could have an Attorney General, and if he is the Minister of Justice, he sits in cabinet with his colleague ministers. All policies that are coming from the other sectors are cleared at the cabinet.
“So, it becomes very difficult for that same member of the government or cabinet to now seek to arrest or prosecute his colleagues. The prosecutorial powers of the country are vested in the Attorney General, who also happens to be the Minister for Justice.
So, on the one hand, he will sit in the cabinet, participate in the approval of all the programmes, and when one of the programmes goes wrong by way of implementation, and you ask him to now go and arrest his colleagues and prosecute them, it becomes a problem.
“I think that we should have a separate Attorney General who, in my view, ought not to be a politician. It must be an independent expert acting as the Attorney General so that he will not rely on any political party to put him there,” he added.
Watch the video below:
We should have an Attorney General separate from the Minister of Justice, someone who is non-political and independent of the political system… – Johnson Asiedu Nketiah (NDC National Chairman) #GHOneNews #EIBNetwork #GHOneTV #NewsAlert pic.twitter.com/14qqHFzX4O
— GHOne TV (@ghonetv) June 26, 2025
