How Ken Agyapong Grabbed US$7m State Cash

*By Larry-Alans Dogbey*

Painstaking investigations by the Herald have exposed the NPP Member of Parliament for Assin North in the Central Region, Mr. Ken Ohene Agyapong for using two ghost companies to collect nearly $7 million United States dollars from the Ministry of Finance, and there are suggestions that the monies were channeled through him to finance the NPP’s election 2008 campaign.

The two companies namely, Mina D’oro Ventures and Messrs. Imperial World Business Limited got a total of US$6, 825, 000 million from the Controller and Accountant Generals’ Department on the orders of Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei and Prof. Gyan-Baffour, who were then in the Finance Ministry as Minister of State and Deputy Minister respectively.

Documents in the custody of The Herald reveal that Dr. Akoto Osei and Prof. Gyan-Baffour at various times authorized the release of the huge sums to the two phony companies.

July 23, 2008, August 7, 2008 and November 27, saw the release of US$1 million, US$650,000.00 and US$2, 175 million respectively to Mina D’oro Ventures by Mr. Christian Sottie then Controller and Accountant General on the strict orders of Dr. Akoto Osei.

Prof. Gyan-Baffour by a document dated November 18, 2008, directed the sacked Controller and Accountant General, Mr. Sottie to pay Messrs Imperial World Business US$ 3 million.

Remarkably, although the two companies claimed to be suppliers of energy materials for rural electrification projects and are located within a building belonging to Mr. Agyapong, Hollywood Shopping Arcade, from which he runs KenCity Media Limited in Madina –Accra, the companies could not be traced.

Since last year, this reporter started paying regular visits in a bid to locate the two companies that have being paid so much money from state coffers for supposedly supplying energy materials for rural electrification projects, which insiders allege did not go through any competitive tender process.

Interestingly, however, Mina D’oro Ventures and Messrs. Imperial World Business Limited operate separate bank accounts namely; 113000003302 and 1131000013929 respectively at the Madina branch of the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB), also located in the building belonging to the NPP MP.

A document from the Registrar-General’s Department on the identities of the two companies revealed something very striking.

The Imperial World Business Limited was not registered with the department but rather Imperial World Business Ventures with registration number BN-19,401C, Mina D’oro Ventures is in the records of the department as a Sole Proprietorship with registration number BN-19,196C but in the name of a certain Stella Wilson as the owner and February 16, 1962 as her date of birth.

Mina D’oro Ventures was registered on March 15, 2001 to do General Merchant, Import and Export Services according to the Registrar-General’s Department.

Shockingly, its postal address is P.O. Box BC Burma Camp-Accra, the same address used by Mr. Ken Agyapong to purchase and import his nearly ¢8 billion Rolls-Royce from Rolls-Royce Motors in London recently.

The two companies have previously been linked to Mr. Agyapong’s sister. But The Herald’s investigations revealed the MP’s sister’s name to be Betty Agyapong (pictured) not Stella Wilson. She owns the Hollywood Lexus Suite Hotel in Madina, and has a rather interesting background which begins from Ghana to Canada and back to Ghana.