The former Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), who used to shower praise on the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for running the country better than any other personality under the Fourth Republic, is at his wit’s end for the current state of affairs, especially the menace of corruption.
According to Prof. Stephen Adei, road contractors are being made to cough up a whopping GHC1 million as bribes to ministers before they are awarded contracts to execute without a guarantee as to whether they will be paid the contract sum.
Sounding rather angry, Prof. Adei lamented that lots of shady deals are ongoing in the country under President Akufo-Addo, whom he said has dashed the hopes of Ghanaians who felt that he was going to really transform the country.
It comes as medical practitioner and one-time presidential aspirant of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy, has, in a heartfelt message, expressed his deep concerns about the state of Ghana’s governance.
In a thought-provoking message titled “Our Broken Ghana,” Dr. Kennedy questioned why the state’s anti-corruption agencies and Ghanaians in general are silent about Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng’s allegation that he was offered $5 million to approve a $88 million judgement debt.
While quoting Cato's “Rome’s Last Citizen,” Dr. Kennedy urged fellow Ghanaians to reflect on the challenges the nation faces, emphasising the importance of virtues, integrity, and the well-being of the public in a society.
Prof. Adei added that if nothing changes with the period left for Akufo-Addo to leave office, the president would go down as one of the worst presidents the country has ever had.
“One of the greatest disappointments of Nana Akufo-Addo’s regime is that, honestly, he raised the hope of Ghanaians. Ghanaians expected they have gotten a leader with a vision, with the charisma, with the determination and it seems if he doesn’t redeem himself in the next 14 months, he would go down in history as one of the most disappointing leaders,” he said while speaking in a TV3 interview last week Friday, October 20, 2023.
The former chairman of the NDPC indicated that what gets to him the most is “the corruption, the arrogance”.
“They think that Ghana is for them, and without them, Ghana would not be there. And even some of them think they can tell us who should be our next president. God forbid!” he added.
Prof. Adei, a former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), made these remarks while addressing the issue of corruption in the awarding of contracts for projects, including roads in the Akufo-Addo government.
He said that the president should be ashamed of himself if he is aware of the shady deals going on in his government.
“This road contract would be given to you, provided you put one million upfront, not after you have gotten the money. This is what Akufo-Addo must be thinking about, and if he knows about it, he must be ashamed.
“That now his people demand from you a certain amount before you would be considered for a job. Why? Because when they get it, whether the government pays you or not, they have gotten their money. It is as if people are in a hurry to loot the country before the end of Akufo-Addo’s term,” he added.
In an editorial published by masemtvgh.com on October 14, 2024, Dr. Kennedy indicated that Ghanaians must be worried about this because it is likely that a lot of judgement debts which the government has paid were illegal.
He added that the Attorney General, Godfred Dame, who is supposed to be fighting corruption, was implicated in the deal, and the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which was set up to investigate such corruption cases, is silent.
“He (Prof. Frimpong-Boateng) dropped a bombshell. AFRICAWATCH reported that ‘Starting from the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Finance, a scheme was put in place to swindle Ghana of a humongous US$ 88.24 million but Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s refusal to accept a bribe of 5 million USD stopped it. And he had copies of letters from the Attorney General and Ministry of Finance to back him up!
“Shockingly, this revelation has been met by loud silence from all corners. President NADAA who pledged to protect the public purse has been silent. The Attorney General, who is implicated and has been working with his “Jonathan”, the Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyabeng to maintain this government’s bogus anti-corruption credentials has been busy spinning the fallacy that there are no criminal Galamseyers in Flagstaff House.
He added, “The Special Prosecutor (Kissi Agyabeng), the self-styled “conscience of the nation” is silent. The peoples’ parliament has not said “Fe” mpo!… Think about it. One judgment debt, negotiated quietly for 88 million USD! How many such deals have been done in the name of loot-and-share? President Biden is being investigated over allegations that he took USD 20 million over 8 years as VP! How much did they pay for the media silence?”
The former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, said that he rejected a $5 million bribe to approve a judgment debt of over $88 million.
In an interview with AFRICAWATCH magazine, Prof. Frimpong narrated how he refused to approve the payment of the judgement debt because he could not believe the claim of the private company, Apex Pollution Company Limited.
He added that it was a government official who decided to engage the company in the payment of the judgement debt, even though the company had done no work.
“Sometime in July 2020, when I was at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, I received a letter from the Ministry of Finance requesting my approval for the payment of a judgment debt to the tune of US$88,247,246.63, please let me repeat it, US$88,247,246.63, to Apex Pollution Control Company. I could not believe my eyes. It had a lot of red flags. The Ministry of Environment had signed an agreement with the company in 2014 to carry out monitoring of vehicle emissions, but the project was not implemented at all.
“The company claimed it invested $6,613,520.63 in the project and sought a judgment debt. Somebody somewhere decided to engage the company in arbitration for the government, and in addition to its alleged initial investment of $6,613,520.63, offered the company $20,006,226 for a return on investment and $61,627,500 for the loss of income for 13 years. And this came up to a whopping $88,247,246.63,” he is quoted to have said in the October/November 2023 edition of the AFRICAWATCH magazine.
He added, “The Apex Pollution Control Company was going to get about $82 million for doing no work. So shocking! To me, there were several irregularities about it. I could see that a huge scandal was staring us right in the face. And I didn’t want to be part of it”.
The former science and technology minister, further stated that he was told that the former Minister of State (in charge of finance), Charles Adu Boahene, was behind the move when he confronted the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, on the matter.
“The whole thing was too shady. I confronted Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta about it, and he told me Charles Adu Boahen, the then deputy minister of finance, was probably behind it. Soon after, some people from Apex Pollution Control Company came to see me in my office and offered me a US$ 5 million bribe to approve the judgment debt for them. I rejected it and told them to disappear from my office,” he added.
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