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A disturbing paper trail reveals that in November 2017, the Akufo Addo administration had secretly approved a fraudulent claim of GHC 12.8 million to a group of former New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ministers and Members of Parliament.
This bombshell was revealed by maverick news analyst Kevin Ekow Taylor with verified documentation.
On 9th August 2018, the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta authorised the payment to these ministers who have constituted themselves under a pressure group called Forum For Former Members of Parliament (FFMP).
The FFMP on April 17, 2020, wrote a letter to thank the Akufo Addo administration for paying the money. “In this regard, Members of the Third Parliament of the Fourth Republic would like to express their profound gratitude to the Hon Minister for Finance, the Hon Chief of Staff and Parliamentary Services for their immense support,” the group wrote to the Akufo Addo’s Chief of Staff, Mrs Frema Opare.
In that same letter, the group which includes ministers in the current administration asked for more in an amount which will be calculated at 20% annual interest for over a decade.
The elaborate scheme implies that these ministers, including those currently serving in the current administration are fraudulently enjoying as much as triple payments of salaries.
While the country was gripped with the deadly outbreak of Covid-19 which the Akufo Addo administration giving an impression of dried up public funds, the Chief of Staff Frema Opare was ordering the current Auditor-General Daniel Yaw Domelevo to okay the payment to these former and current appointees who form the FFMP.
In a letter seen by Whatsup News, dated April 22, 2020, Chief of Staff Frema Opare gave the Auditor-General two weeks to complete the process that will allow the second wave of payment to the FFMP.
The Mr. Domelevo flatly refused the order, making reference to the fact that since 2009, it has been determined that these FFMP members did not deserve any extra payment.
Indeed, in 2009, when this same issue came up, the then President-late John Evans Atta Mills constituted a committee headed by renowned industrialist Ishmael Yamson to ascertain the authenticity of the claims.
The committee found out then that the claims were fraudulent and was referenced to an earlier committee headed by Mr. Chinyere-Hesse who was appointed by the then John Kuffour to make recommendation on the famous Article 71 Officeholders, including members of the FFMP.
In the Yamson, recommendation, it was found out that Ms. Chinyere-Hesse’s report was fraught with loopholes, including the fact that the report was reworked with each separate copy considered as a “Final Report”.
In his response to pressure mounted on him from the Jubilee House, the Auditor-General flatly refused to okay the questionable payment.
In a letter dated May 8, 2020, Mr. Domelevo wrote to the Jubilee House Chief of Staff: “It is my considered opinion that the Former MPs are not entitled to what they are asking for, but also came to me as a big surprise that our honourable former MPs are making such a request at a time of a pandemic which has taken the entire world by surprise…I am unable to carry out the audit verification,”