The earlier ‘political goal-settling’ ORAL is scrapped, the better — Ansah-Asare

Kwaku Ansah-Asare, former Director of the Ghana School of Law, has called for the immediate dissolution of the Operation Recover All Loots (ORAL) committee, describing it as a tool for political vendettas.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday, January 14, Mr Ansah-Asare expressed concerns that the committee, which was set up to investigate and recover alleged stolen state assets, could overstep its boundaries and cause more harm than good.

“They may mean well, but from my perspective, ORAL is just about settling political goals. We don’t need that sort of thing,” he stated.

The legal luminary advised President John Dramani Mahama to reconsider the existence of ORAL to prevent potential misuse of its powers.

He warned that failure to scrap the committee could backfire on the president and tarnish his reputation.

“Overall, ORAL will become one of the many entities presidents have established only to realise that members of the committee will take the law into their own hands and do things that, from a commonsense perspective, should not be done,” he cautioned.

Mr Ansah-Asare further stressed, “The earlier he [the president] scraps it, the better. Otherwise, it will lead to the embarrassment of the person who set it up.”

ORAL, launched by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, is tasked with identifying and recovering state assets believed to have been misappropriated by officials of the former Akufo-Addo administration.