Highlights of Osafo-Maafo’s four-year tenure under Akufo-Addo

Yesterday, January 14 Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo tendered in his resignation as Senior Minister even before President Nana Akufo-Addo names his appointees for this second term.

To many, this is the clearest indication yet that Yaw Osafo-Maafo will not be part of Akufo-Addo’s second term and could even signal the end of his political career which has spanned some four decades.

Today, GhanaWeb takes a look at some of the highlights of his tenure during the first term of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Yaw Osafo-Maafo has had an exemplary career as a banker, consultant, politician and a statesman.

With his background as the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning and Minister for Education and Sports during the Kufuor-led administration, expectations from Ghanaians were high when he was elected as Senior Minister in President Nana Akufo-Addo’s first term.

His role was the first of its kind to be established under government and though it was unclear to many what exactly his duties as a Senior Minister were, it was understood that he was responsible for the co-ordinating of various Economic Ministries in President Akufo-Addo’s administration.

Per his voluminous experience in governance, a lot was expected of him following his appointment as a Senior Minister.

But many are of the view that over the past four years of the NPP administration, there are no visible achievements that one can pinpoint as what belongs to the Senior Minister.

The ugly side

He was cited as the reason for the alleged attempt by the government to remove the Auditor-General to cover up the ‘rot and the looting’ of public funds by the government.

This was when his woes deepened as several Ghanaians demanded his resignation because he was regarded as corrupt.

That was the second ‘label’ he earned from Ghanaians aside from the incompetent tag as several Ghanaians who shared their thoughts on their various social media platforms alleged that the Senior Minister while in office perpetuated and supervised several acts of corruption with his son and remained untouched due to his relations with President Akufo-Addo.

The Osafo-Maafo, Domelovo and Kroll Associates circle

It all began when in 2017, the Senior Minister, on behalf of the government, signed a contract with Kroll and Associates for the firm to do value-for-money auditing on some projects, identify wrongdoers and recover the assets of the said wrongdoers. Kroll was reportedly paid $1 million.

However, following an audit of the accounts of the Ministry of Finance, the Auditor-General concluded that Kroll and Associates had been paid for no work done.

The Senior Minister, therefore, became the man in the middle of a controversy after President Akufo-Addo directed the Auditor-General to proceed on his accumulated leave.

The Auditor-General at the time was leading an investigation against the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo in a controversial $1 million (€826,000) procurement of service.

The case later landed in court. While pending court judgement, the Auditor-General was expected to take a critical look at the evidence of work done provided by the Senior Minister and his team.

However, the Acting Auditor-General, a day after the Auditor General began his leave, indicated that the evidence of work done provided by the Senior Minister’s team was satisfactory.

The Court subsequently cleared Osafo-Maafo and his team in the $1m Kroll and Associates surcharge by the Auditor General.

The Aisha Hung Case
He also became a victim of abuse for justifying the decision of the government to discontinue the prosecution of the Chinese ‘galamsyer’ Aisha Huang. All these are said to be some of the reasons responsible for NPP’s poor performance in the 2020 General Elections.

Aisha, who was arraigned in Ghana in 2017 for engaging in galamsey at Bepotenten in the Amansie Central District in the Ashanti Region, was later deported in December 2018 by the government.

Her release shocked many, especially the small scale miners whose members are also facing trial for a similar offense.

Justifying why the ‘Chinese Galamsey Queen’ was released, Mr Osafo-Maafo said jailing her would have affected Ghana’s diplomatic ties with China.

The Senior Minister was lampooned by Civil Society Groups and political parties who believed his comment made a mockery of President Akufo-Addo’s fight against galamsey.

The UNIPASS deal gone wrong

He was part of the team that introduced UNIPASS to replace the single window platform, Ghana Customs Management System (GCMS) from GCNet and West Blue Consult, at the ports.

The project became diplomatic as Freight Forwarders at the Tema Port were agitated because of their inability to pass declaration to get their goods out of the port following the implementation of the UNIPASS system.

Osafo-Maafo’s role in the execution of the deal came to the fore when he was reported by the Minority in Parliament at the time to have written to GCNet, proposing to pay off the company with ‘taxpayer’s cash’ so that they hand over operations of the Ghana National Single Window (GNSW) to Ghana Link/UNIPASS.

His son’s involvement in the Agyapa deal

Critics accused the government of nepotism and favouritism following the involvement of Bosompem Safo-Maafo, son of the Senior Minister in the Agyapa deal.

The government was captured to have said with the Senior Minister’s son’s experience in mineral royalties’ transaction and his track record in some of the countries he had worked for, he is very much qualified to engage in the Agyapa Royalties deal.

The infamous deal was approved by Ghana’s legislature in August 2020 despite a protest from the Minority.

Based on the agreement, Agyapa Royalties Limited (ARL) were to trade shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange for private people to buy. But the Mineral Income Investment Fund (MIIF) will remain the majority shareholder.

Due to the controversies that have surrounded the deal, the President has asked that parliament looks at it again before it is activated.

His resignation

Following the numerous public backlash and calls for him to be excluded from President Akufo-Addo’s second term, the Senior Minister on January 15, 2021, served notice of his decision to resign from the position and government entirely.

His decision to resign has been subjected to several questioning with others opining that Yaw Osafo-Maafo’s position as Senior Minister does not technically exist anymore since all ministries have been dissolved pending new appointments.