Minority Leader in Parliament Alexander Afenyo-Markin has urged the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to intensify efforts to identify and prosecute financiers and organisers behind Ghana-linked drug trafficking networks.
The Effutu MP questioned what he described as EOCO’s focus on the arrest and investigation of opposition politicians, arguing that similar urgency should be applied to major narcotics investigations.
His comments followed the detention of Manhyia South MP Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah by EOCO as part of an ongoing investigation into transactions involving SIC Life Savings and Loans.
Baffour Awuah voluntarily reported to EOCO on October 1, accompanied by his lawyer, Samuel Atta Akyea, and other MPs, after the Accra High Court issued a warrant authorising his arrest and searches for documents relevant to the investigation.
EOCO had told the court that it had exhausted reasonable means of securing the MP’s voluntary attendance.
Afenyo-Markin, however, questioned the manner in which the investigation had been handled, while stressing that the Minority was not seeking to interfere with the substantive probe.
“We do not by this seek to prejudge the SIC Life Savings & Loans investigation. No one is above the law, EOCO included. But we believe the MP’s treatment forms part of a broader attempt to intimidate critical opposition voices,” he wrote.
The Minority Leader also claimed that Baffour Awuah had referred EOCO’s earlier invitations to the Clerk of Parliament, but that the agency did not recognise the correspondence.
He further questioned the basis on which EOCO concluded that it had exhausted reasonable means of securing the MP’s attendance before obtaining the arrest warrant.
“Hon. Baffour Awuah says he referred EOCO’s February invitations to the Clerk of Parliament, but EOCO refused to recognise correspondence from the Clerk. Nothing publicly available to us shows that EOCO subsequently approached the Speaker before seeking the warrant.”
He said, “On what basis, then, did it reportedly claim to have exhausted reasonable means of securing his attendance? It is regrettable that a false impression is being created that the MP deliberately avoided EOCO”.
Afenyo-Markin subsequently challenged EOCO to devote greater attention to the financiers and organisers behind drug trafficking networks allegedly linked to Ghana.
He said the agency’s mandate should extend beyond individual suspects to those who finance and coordinate organised criminal operations.
