The Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, has launched a blistering attack on the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) initiative, describing the entire exercise as a “complete waste of time and resources.”
Speaking in an interview on October 22, the lawmaker said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had long maintained that the initiative would yield nothing meaningful, a position he believes has now been vindicated by the poor quality of the committee’s final report.
“What was the utility of the ORAL?” he quizzed. “When you look at the persons forming the committee — Daniel Domelevo, a very highly experienced auditor and former Auditor-General, Martin Kpebu, an experienced lawyer, and Commissioner (Rtd.) Kofi Boakye, a seasoned security officer — you would expect a solid report. But that’s not what we got.”
According to Mr. Baffour Awuah, despite the calibre of individuals involved, the committee merely collected documents without subjecting them to any meaningful scrutiny.
“All they did was to receive documents and couldn’t even probe their usefulness,” he alleged. “They handed over the report to the President, including all garbage. So, what was the point?”
The Manhyia South MP argued that the committee’s “shallow work” had only added to the mounting pressure on the Attorney General, who is now left to deal with an unrefined and unreliable report.
“It appears that they are part of the reason why there’s so much pressure on the Attorney General,” he said. “And from what I’m hearing this evening, it’s really unfortunate.”
He accused members of the committee — particularly former Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo and lawyer Martin Kpebu — of failing to apply their professional expertise to ensure due diligence and credibility in their work.
“Mr. Domelevo, very respectfully, failed to bring his experience to bear on what he received,” the MP claimed. “And Mr. Kpebu, who has been at the bar for about 18 years and qualifies to be a judge of the Court of Appeal, should have known what was admissible or inadmissible. If he couldn’t assess the documents, then the utility of ORAL is highly questionable.”
Mr. Baffour Awuah concluded that the committee’s work provided no real value to the Attorney General and amounted to a colossal waste of public resources.
“It was of no use to the Attorney General,” he stressed. “From day one, I said it was a futile exercise — and today, the outcome has vindicated our position. ORAL was a total waste of time.”
