WAEC to begin prosecuting examination offenders

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has initiated the process to obtain powers of prosecution to enable it to put people before court for examination malpractice.
The council says it believes that when the Attorney-General approves the process, it will become empowered to expedite the prosecution of offenders and help curb the menace of wrongdoing in examinations.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Head of Legal at WAEC, Rev. Victor Brew, said the process of granting the council authority would hopefully be completed by early next year, following which it would be clothed with the power to begin prosecuting people who engaged in examination malpractice.
“We have initiated the process to obtain the power to prosecute examination offenders. We are still engaging with the Attorney-General’s Department, since, by law, it is the Attorney-General who is vested with the power to prosecute; any other person or entity prosecutes on behalf of the Attorney-General.
“But when we finally get the nod to prosecute, offenders will be processed for court by staff of WAEC. We will have our own prosecutors to do the job for us,” Rev. Brew explained.
Currently, WAEC’s role insofar as dealing with examination malpractice is concerned is to apprehend offenders, confirm that the crimes have been committed and hand over the offenders to the police for prosecution.
But there are no special courts that deal with examination malpractice and so the process of prosecution is sometimes lukewarm, a situation WAEC believes is not deterrent enough to curb the practice.