Allan Kyeremanten: Things Fall Apart

The dreams of Allan Kyeremanten, aka, Allan Cash, to succeed the President is all but limping on one leg if not a totally collapsed mission, as he is currently embroiled in another controversial charges.

Currently a Court in Takoradi is bearing a case where Mr Kyerematen, the Minister of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and PSI is billed to answer charges of how over ¢10 billion of out growers’ money on the PSI for sugarcane had been disbursed.

Reports suggest that no representative from the Ministry has been turning up for this case even as the Attorney General also fails to turn up on the case, which has since been postponed till 7th May.

While this case is pending, the Minister has been slapped with another petition that raises issues of conflict of interest and impropriety against him with all the serious ramifications for his presidential aspirations and his Ministerial job.

The Minister would soon be dragged before Anna Bossman's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and for the second time the Commission would be investigating a Cabinet Minister under the current government over issues of conflict of interest. The first was Dr Richard Anane, Minister of Road Transportation who resigned following the recommendations of the Commission to the President to sack him.

But unlike the Dr. Anane case in which CHRAJ had been confronted with another legal tussle on whether or not it had the mandate to investigate Anane on a case in which there was no formal complainant, in the case of Mr. Allan Kyeremanten, there is a formal petitioner or complainant for that matter. He is Mr. Kwesi Arthur, former Board Member of the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF), which is one of the institutions cited in the petition against the Minister.

The petitioner is also a former Greater Accra Regional Treasurer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).

In a damning petition to CHRAJ published yesterday by The Ghanaian Observer newspaper, Mr. Arthur made several allegations against the Minister, the truth of which can only be ascertained through the imminent investigations by CHRAJ.

Acting Commissioner of CHRAJ, Ms. Anna Bossman confirmed in a telephone interview yesterday that her outfit had received the petition and was studying it before setting its investigative machinery on the matter.

Among other issues, the Minister, through his Director of Finance, Human Resources and Administration, Mr. A. S. Bekoe had sought ¢32 billion from EDIF for some five unnamed companies for the refurbishment of former GNTC properties at Adjaben in Accra, against the legal advice of the Attorney General that acquiring that facility would be against the EDIF law.

The petition also raised an issue about the establishment of a company called PSI Properties, which was issued a certificate of incorporation in July 2003, having the Minister as its Chairman and a Director. The main subscribers of PSI Properties were said to be PSI Ghana, with its address as PSI Secretariat, State House, Osu -Accra.

The Minister who is said to be out of the country could not be reached for his comments on the issue.