Special Prosecutor Opens Probe Into GH¢70,000 Vetting Memo, Summons Deputy Minority Leader

Ghana’s Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has launched a preliminary investigation into a memorandum purportedly written by Deputy Minority Leader Patricia Appiagyei describing how she returned GH¢70,000 given to her in connection with Parliament’s vetting of judicial and ministerial nominees, and has summoned her to assist with the inquiry.
In a public notice issued Friday, the OSP said it had “taken note” of a document circulating in the media attributed to Appiagyei, the Member of Parliament for Asokwa, and addressed to Minority Chief Whip Frank Annoh-Dompreh. The document alleges that Appiagyei returned an amount of GH¢70,000 that had been allocated to her as an advance from the Majority Chief Whip, in relation to the Appointments Committee’s vetting of two ministerial nominees and three Supreme Court nominees.
The OSP said the memo’s suggestion that Appiagyei questioned the source of the money, and that the circumstances bore “the hallmarks of extortion of the nominees,” had prompted it to open a preliminary probe into the document’s authenticity, the source of the funds, and their intended purpose. The office said it has written to Appiagyei inviting her to appear before investigators, and added that it is “actively investigating all extortion allegations involving Members of Parliament.”
What the memo says
According to reports citing the document, dated September 2 and addressed to Annoh-Dompreh, Appiagyei wrote that she was returning the GH¢70,000 primarily because she did not know where the money had come from. She reportedly said it would be inconsistent to accept a gift tied to nominees the Minority had refused to vet, and stated explicitly that she did not intend to extort money from any of the judges involved.
The nominees named in connection with the episode are Supreme Court candidates Justice Sophia Rosetta Oduokuwa Bernasko Essah, Justice Edward Amoako Asante and Justice Anthony Forson Jnr, along with ministerial nominees including former Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga and Deputy Majority Leader Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings. Appiagyei is reported to have said her decision mirrored that of Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin, who she said had also returned his share of the money.
A vetting process already under strain
The alleged payment surfaced against the backdrop of a bitter procedural fight inside Parliament’s Appointments Committee. The Minority Caucus walked out of the committee’s proceedings on August 27 after objecting to what it called insufficient notice for the Supreme Court vetting — Afenyo-Markin argued that convention required fourteen days’ notice and newspaper advertisement before nominees are examined, and raised nine grounds of procedural objection before leading his colleagues out. Committee Chairman Bernard Ahiafor rejected the objections as without merit and told the Minority to pursue any grievance through Parliament’s Standing Orders.
It was in that atmosphere — with the Minority publicly refusing to participate in the vetting — that the alleged GH¢70,000 “advance” reached Appiagyei, according to the accounts now under OSP scrutiny.
Disputed authenticity
Not every detail of the story is settled. Appiagyei has told at least one outlet, Graphic Online, that the circulating memorandum is not genuine, dismissing it as “fake” in comments to a parliamentary correspondent — even as multiple other Ghanaian outlets have reported on the memo’s contents as authentic and quoted directly from it. The OSP’s own notice is carefully hedged, repeatedly describing the document as “purported” and the allegations within it as claims still to be verified, rather than treating the memo as established fact.
The episode has also drawn commentary from outside Parliament. Lawyer and activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor invoked past extortion controversies involving other MPs in reacting to the affair, questioning publicly whether a serious inquiry would follow or whether the matter would be “swept away.”
What happens next
The OSP has not said when Appiagyei is expected to appear or how long the preliminary investigation will run. Its notice stopped short of naming any suspect or alleging wrongdoing by any individual, framing the inquiry instead as an effort to establish the facts — whether the document is genuine, where the GH¢70,000 originated, and what it was meant to secure — before deciding whether a full investigation is warranted. The office reiterated that it is examining extortion allegations involving MPs more broadly, suggesting the Appiagyei case may not be an isolated inquiry.