The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has announced that it will assess allegations of extortion and related conduct made by Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) Chief Executive Officer Sammy Gyamfi against Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin.
In a public notice issued on Monday, August 24, 2026, the OSP said it had taken note of the allegations and acknowledged three petitions submitted in connection with the matter: a joint petition by two persons and two separate petitions by other individuals.
The OSP said it would assess the case to determine whether the allegations fall within its statutory mandate and whether further investigative action is warranted.
The Offence of Extortion
Extortion is criminalised under section 151 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), which provides that a person who extorts property from another person by means of threats commits a second-degree felony.
The provision also makes an important distinction concerning the nature of the threat. Section 151(2) states that, when used in relation to extortion, “threat” does not include a threat of criminal assault or harm to the person threatened.
Section 17 of Act 29 sets out the forms of threat relevant to extortion. These include a threat of criminal force or harm, criminal damage to property, libel or slander, prosecution for an offence, or detention. The provision also recognises an offer to abstain, or procure another person to abstain, from doing something which would itself constitute a threat.
This means that the legal question in an alleged extortion case is whether the property was sought by means of a qualifying threat. The distinction is illustrated in section 151 itself: where money is obtained by a threat of violence to the person, the offence is not extortion but robbery.
Extortion under section 151 is a second-degree felony. As the provision does not prescribe a specific punishment, the general sentencing provision under the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, 1960 (Act 30) applies. A person convicted of the offence may therefore be sentenced to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 10 years.
Background
The OSP’s notice follows petitions concerning the allegations, including a joint petition submitted by the United Party’s Director of Communications and Spokesperson, Solomon Owusu, and its Director of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Andrew Appiah-Danquah.
The petition asks the OSP, the Attorney-General, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), the Speaker of Parliament and the Inspector-General of Police to investigate allegations that Afenyo-Markin was involved, personally or through others, in an alleged attempt to obtain $1 million from Sammy Gyamfi.
The petitioners also ask investigators to establish whether the alleged monetary demand was connected to threats of reputational injury, adverse publication, political pressure or threatened parliamentary or official action. They further want any alleged intermediaries, negotiators, agents or members of an alleged RTI-related team to be identified and investigated, together with the preservation of relevant electronic, documentary, audiovisual and financial evidence.
The allegations emerged following public exchanges between Afenyo-Markin and Gyamfi concerning the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme and the operations and financial position of GoldBod.
During the Government Accountability Series on August 19, 2026, the GoldBod CEO made allegations concerning persons he said engaged in calculated reputational attacks and subsequently pressured targets into what he described as “compulsory arbitration” for financial benefit.
Eric Adjei, Chief Executive Officer of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) and a publicly known associate of Gyamfi, subsequently made further allegations against Afenyo-Markin. According to the United Party’s petition, Adjei alleged that Afenyo-Markin was engaged in extortionist conduct and had established or was associated with a team that used requests under the Right to Information Act to obtain information from public institutions, after which persons connected with the alleged enterprise assumed the role of “negotiators.”
The petition further refers to an alleged demand for $1 million from Gyamfi.
The petitioners have, however, expressly acknowledged that they do not possess the communications or other evidence on which the allegations may be based and do not purport to have established their truth.
