The Office of the Special Prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation into a circulating memorandum that describes GH¢70,000 changing hands around the late-August parliamentary vetting of ministerial and Supreme Court nominees. The MP named on the document, Deputy Minority Leader Patricia Appiagyei, says she did not write it and did not receive the money.

The OSP notice and Appiagyei’s denial both landed on Friday, 4 September 2026. Neither is a finding that anyone was paid, extorted or bribed.

What the OSP has actually opened

In a statement titled “Affairs of the Appointments Committee of Parliament,” the OSP said it had taken note of a purported memorandum attributed to Appiagyei, the Asokwa MP, and addressed to Minority Chief Whip Frank Annoh-Dompreh. As the office summarised it, the document alleged that she returned GH¢70,000 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 nominees to the Supreme Court.

The OSP said the content, as presented, had Appiagyei purportedly casting doubt on the source of the funds and “the hallmarks of extortion of the nominees.” On that basis it has begun a preliminary investigation into three questions: whether the document is genuine, where the alleged funds came from, and what they were for. It has invited Appiagyei to attend and assist. It also said it is “actively investigating all extortion allegations involving Members of Parliament.”

A preliminary investigation is the office asking whether there is enough to go further. It is not a charge, and it is not a conclusion that the memo is real.

The MP named on the paper has answered

Earlier on Friday, some reports treated the circulating memo as Appiagyei’s own act of returning money. By evening she had put a written denial on the record.

In a statement dated 4 September, published in full by Graphic Online, she said she did not write, authorise or circulate the document. “It is fake and should be disregarded by all.” She added, “I state expressly and without qualification that I did not receive any payment of GH¢70,000, or any other sum, from any person in connection with the vetting of ministerial or Supreme Court nominees, or in connection with my duties as a member of the Appointments Committee.” Because she received no payment, she said, she had no occasion to return one. Second Deputy Minority Whip Jerry Ahmed Shaib has also described the document as fake.

We are reporting her denial as her position, not as the OSP’s finding. The office’s first listed task is to test the document’s veracity. Until that is done, the memo cannot be treated as her words.

Why this committee is not an ordinary room

Parliament’s Appointments Committee is the standing body that examines presidential nominees for high public office before the House votes. Its published remit includes ministers, Supreme Court justices, the Chief Justice and the Special Prosecutor. Appiagyei is listed as deputy ranking member. Annoh-Dompreh sits on it.

The Constitution is the reason that work is not internal housekeeping. Ministers take office only with Parliament’s prior approval. Other Supreme Court justices are appointed by the President acting on the advice of the Judicial Council, in consultation with the Council of State, and with Parliament’s approval. If money were moving around that scrutiny, or if a forged paper could make it look as if it were, the problem would not stop at one MP’s reputation. It would go to whether the people who run ministries and sit on the apex court were examined on the merits.

The late-August recall already produced a political fight over that process. The Minority walked out of the Supreme Court nominees’ vetting on 27 August, arguing the timetable was too compressed. The House still approved the two ministerial nominees, Mahama Ayariga and Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, and the three Supreme Court nominees, Justice Sophia Rosetta Oduokuwa Bernasko Essah, Justice Edward Amoako Asante and Anthony Forson Jnr. The OSP file is about the integrity of that completed vetting, not about reopening the votes.

What remains unanswered

Transparency International Ghana and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, in a joint statement the same day, asked the Parliamentary Service to publish the source, purpose, authorising authority and budgetary basis of any such GH¢70,000 allocation, and to say whether payments of that kind are allowed under the Standing Orders, the Parliamentary Service Act and public financial management rules. Their statement, as reported, still treated a rejected payment as the starting point. Appiagyei now says there was nothing to reject. The disclosure demand is still a fair question for Parliament: if committee members received money connected to vetting, from where, on what authority, and for what. If they did not, the House can say so.

We did not find a published reply from the Majority Chief Whip, the Speaker or the Parliamentary Service in the material checked for this article. The OSP statement does not name the Majority Chief Whip or say it has confirmed that any sum moved.

The next fact that would change the story is not another round of commentary. It is what the OSP establishes about the paper itself, and whether Parliament accounts for how, if at all, money is handled around Appointments Committee work. Until then, the public record is an investigation opened on a disputed document, and a named MP who says the document is a fabrication.