Agyapa scandal: Akufo-Addo denies he told Amidu he would ‘handle the matter’ himself

Nana Bediatuo Asante, the Secretary to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has rejected the charge in Martin Amidu’s resignation that the President, was trying to let Martin Amidu shelve the “corruption and anti-corruption risk assessment” report on the controversial Agyapa Royalties minerals agreement.

Reacting to the fallouts of Martin Amidu’s resignation as Special Prosecutor, the Office of the President in an official response said: “At no point did the President ask you to shelve the report, so he could ‘handle the matter.”

The nine-page detailed response signed by Nana Bediatuo Asante stated: “It is difficult to see in what way and in what context the President would seek to “handle the matter” when the matter [sic] was already public knowledge and had led to the Ministry of Finance suspending action on the Agyapa transaction in anticipation of your report”.

Martin Amidu in his resignation letter to the President on Monday, November 16, 2020, mentioned interference by the Akufo-Administration in conducting a corruption risk assessment on the controversial Agyapa Mineral Royalties deal as one of the reasons he could no longer stay in office as the Special Prosecutor.

He said that the President’s reaction towards him when he suggested producing the Agyapa Royalties Limited “corruption and anti-corruption risk assessment” convinced him that he was not expected to exercise any independence as the Special Prosecutor.

His position as the Special Prosecutor had consequently become clearly untenable.

The President’s response emphasized that that at the meeting held on November 1, 2020, at the Presidency, the finance ministry’s response was duly delivered to the Special Prosecutor, but in a “dramatic turnaround”, Martin Amidu refused to accept it, a situation the President’s response letter described as “disturbing”.

“It is extremely important to emphasize that the subject of your discussion with the President on 1 November, 2020, was the delivery to you of comments on your report by the Ministry of Finance. At no point did the President ask you to shelve the report so he could ‘handle the matter’, Bediatuo Asante wrote.

“You are clearly aware that the President had accepted the observations you had made in the Agyapa Report and had acted on it by issuing directives to officials of the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney-General’s Department. This cannot be the conduct of a person seeking to hamstring your efforts or to avoid the contents of the Report,” Bediatuo Asante stated.