AG's Office drafts bill on organised crime

Saturday, September 20, 2008 (Page 3 Lead)

A Bill which seeks to establish a Serious Fraud and Organised Crime Office as a specialised agency to monitor and investigate economic and organised crime has been drafted.
The objective of the bill is to detect and prevent organised crime, help eradicate economic crime and take the profit out of crime.
According to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Joe Ghartey, the office would have the power to investigate, prosecute and recover the proceeds of crime.
He said the bill, which had since been forwarded to the Board of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for more input, would tackle money laundering, human trafficking, cyber crime and computer-related offences.
Mr Ghartey, who announced this at the inauguration of the SFO Board in Accra yesterday, said the board and staff of the SFO were expected to make inputs to enrich the bill, which was also expected to retrieve proceeds from organised crime and related matters for the benefit of the state.
A retired Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice R. T. Aninakwah, is the chairman of the board, with Mr Edward Agyemang Duodu, the acting Chief Executive of the SFO; Mrs Elizabeth Mills-Robertson, a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, and Mr Benjamin Botwe, Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), as members.
The rest of the members of the board are Mr William Kpobi, a Chief State Attorney at the Attorney-General’s Department in charge of the Ashanti Region, and Mr Alex Nii Kwetei Quaynor, a private legal practitioner.
The Attorney-General introduced Mr Duodu to the staff of the SFO, who welcomed him with a thunderous applause which lasted almost a minute.
Mr Ghartey described Mr Duodu as an honest man who was hardworking, unassuming but firm and full of integrity and urged the staff to give him the maximum support to serve the country.
He explained that the former Chief Executive of the office, Mr Theophilus Cudjoe, had been re-assigned to the Ministry of Justice as a Policy Advisor on serious and organised crime.
Touching more on the bill, Mr Ghartey said organised crime had reached alarming proportions in recent times and it was, therefore, important to establish a specialised agency with wide powers to curb the spate of criminal activities which were eating into the social and moral fibre of the country.
A memorandum on the bill, which was signed by the Attorney-General, said the increase in criminal activities might be attributed to the fact that the punishment for offences had not been effective to combat crimes.
According to the memorandum, crime was still high because perpetrators who were given jail terms or were fined later continued their criminal activities because they were ultimately allowed to enjoy their ill-gotten gains, adding, “It has become imperative to strengthen existing structures to help eradicate organised crime.”
It further stated that the bill transferred the assets, liabilities and property vested in the SFO established under the Serious Fraud Office Act, 1993 (Act 466) to the office established under that act.
Under the bill, the National Investigation Committee, the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, as well as the State Houses (Allocation and Policy Implementation) Committee, would also be dissolved.
It added that the bill repealed the National Investigation Committee Act, 1982 (PNDCL 2), the Revenue Commissioners Act, 1984 (PNDCL 80), the State Houses (Allocation Policy and Implementation) Commission Act, 1984 (PNDCL 83) and the Serious Fraud Office Act, 1993 (Act 466).