KUFUOR FAMILY...To Lose Billions Of Cedis

— Following the death of Nana Boateng their beloved front man

NANA Boateng, the beloved front man of the Kufuor family, is dead. He fell ill about six weeks ago and went into a coma for about a week from which he never recovered. Nana Boateng died on Thursday 18th October 2007 at the youthful age of 54 years. It had been decided that he should be flown abroad for treatment, to be accompanied by Felicia Kufuor, President Kufuor’s niece, but this arrangement fell through when he fell into a coma.

The following story about the life and death of Nana Boateng, the beloved front man of the Kufuor family, has been given exclusively to "The Ghana Palaver" by a Kufuor household insider. We do not vouch for the accuracy of the information. Nana Boateng has an Ashanti father and a Fante mother who hails from Apam. He attended Apam Secondary School where he earned the nickname “Baby Face”. He is a half-brother (same father) of Kwame Boateng (Wofa), the “Chief of Staff” in President Kufuor’s household.

During the 2004 elections, Nana Boateng’s assignment was to induce the chiefs and opinion leaders in the Central Region, using all the familiar NPP tactics of “monetisation” and “treating”, to vote for the NPP and President Kufuor, an assignment he performed to perfection.

Three months after the elections, Nana Boateng was given about 45 outboard motors and over ¢3 billion by a top NPP official of the Agricultural Development Bank to take to some of the more prominent chiefs in the Central Region as “thank you” for a job well done.

In real life, Nana Boateng had a Company called “Pro-Vision” about which "The Ghana Palaver" has written previously. Pro-Vision deals in laminated paper, election ballot paper, and other materials used by the Electoral Commission for elections.

Nana Boateng also owned “Bowohomoden Company Limited”, a Licensed Cocoa Buying Company, and a GOIL Filling Station at Nsawam as well as several other business interests.

Nana Boateng was a “companion” and partner of Nana Ama Kufuor, daughter of President J. A. Kufuor and sister of the “41 year old accountant” owner of Hotel Kufuor, “Chief” John Addo Kufuor.

Nana Boateng and Nana Ama Kufuor began engaging in a lot of business deals once daddy John Agyekum Kufuor became President and the two became fabulously rich. Indeed so rich did Nana Boateng become that it is alleged he was one of the ten richest people in Ghana with millions of United States dollars in his bank accounts overseas.

But everybody in the Kufuor family knows that the monies in those overseas bank accounts do not belong to Nana Boateng. For this reason, there was fear and consternation in the Kufuor household when Nana Boateng fell sick. The consternation reached dizzying heights when he fell into a coma and could therefore not sign any documents transferring his enormous wealth to the real owners of the monies.

Our insider source has asked us to raise the following pertinent questions:

• Is it true that by Nana Boateng’s death, some foreign Banks have been made richer since his millions of dollars in those banks cannot be accessed?

• Is it true that some persons in Ghana would lose those millions of dollars if Nana Boateng was not able to divulge his bank account numbers to them before he fell into a coma and died?

Nana Boateng’s is a classic case of from rags to extreme riches. In the 1990s, even though Nana Boateng set up a company and acquired a licence to operate as a Licensed Cocoa Buying Company, he could not raise enough collateral and neither was he deemed to be that credit worthy. For those reasons, his bankers refused to guarantee his applications for loans from Ghana Cocoa Board. Indeed Nana Boateng’s Company, Bowohomoden Co. Ltd. never purchased more than 2,500 tonnes cocoa in any year in those times.

However, when his half brother became head of President Kufuor’s household and when he became a “companion” and partner of President Kufuor’s daughter, his circumstances changed dramatically and by the time he died he was exceedingly rich.

Nana Boateng’s story confirms the belief by many that in Ghana, the shortest route to riches and wealth is by acquiring political power.

Nana Boateng is one of the businessmen politicians who before they joined President Kufuor’s NPP Government in 2001 were virtual paupers but after only six and half years of NPP in power have become fabulously rich.

Some other Kufuor acolytes have made such rich friends that they can raise billions of cedis at one fund raising dinner and can also import ready for distribution to all 230 constituency Chairmen of the NPP brand new vehicles for their flagbearership campaigns.