ADB bribery saga: I was being blackmailed – Afenyo-Markin

Legal practitioner and NPP Member of Parliament for the Efutu constituency, Alexander Afenyo-Markin has stated that bribery allegations made against him was the work of blackmailers who were orchestrating his downfall.

According to the controversial politician, claims that he was bribed by the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) to drop a lawsuit blocking the issuance of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) by the bank were false and malicious.

“ADB has come out with a statement, a two page statement and it was issued by their head of legal council of the bank and the bank said so clearly that they had not paid any money to me.

“I had not gone there [ADB] to extort any money from them, it was the work of blackmailers...it was a compromised piece of work by blackmailers. Blackmailers put this together to destroy me,” Afenyo-Markin told Bola Ray on Starr Chat Wednesday on Starr 103.5FM.

ADB in a recent statement denied allegations that it bribed Mr. Afenyo-Markin.

The bank said the allegations levelled against Mr Afenyo-Markin were not only disturbing and shocking but appeared to be a “professionally tabulated pack of half-truths completely in sync with outright lies”.

“These are calculated distractive acts intended to derail the IPO which has already seen enough upsets,” the bank said.

The letter was in reply to allegations of corruption levelled against Mr Afenyo-Markin by anti-corruption advocacy group Forum for the Protection of Public Funds.

Background

Last year, Mr Afenyo-Markin was accused of using the suit to bait the bank to pay them huge sums of money.

It was alleged that the bank paid GH¢250,000 to Mr Afenyo-Markin to get him to withdraw the suit against the ADB to enable the bank to commence its IPO to pave the way for it to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

Mr Afenyo-Markins was also alleged to have confessed on a tape that an additional amount of $400,000 was paid into his account in South Africa and $500,000 paid later into his sister’s account at a bank in the United.