The 2020 Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has called Akufo-Addo a thieving President who is looting the national coffers through proxies, especially his family members.
In an interview with Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jr on Accra based XYZ TV, the former President named Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, a nephew of Akufo-Addo’s, Gabby Asare Otchere Darko, a cousin and other family members including Edward “Bumpty” Akufo-Addo as the conduits doing the stealing for Akufo-Addo.
The operational organogram is that Akufo-Addo sits at the top while the bandits plunder the state for the President, Mr. Mahama said, citing Ken Ofori-Atta, the scandal-prone Finance Minister, as an outstanding example.
“This Finance Minister, you know what he’s interested in? all he’s interested in is going on the bond market and borrowing money because he benefits from it indirectly, his company is at the bottom of borrowing all these Eurobonds. He’s borrowed US$9billion from the bond market in four years and every bond he floats Databank makes money out of it through proxies and other things, you know,” Mahama charged.
“And so this is clearly a conflict of interest, the President knows about this and that’s why he says I’m too old to be corrupt, I’m not going to steal any monies because he knew his relatives would steal the money for him, and that’s exactly what is happening, you can go to a plushy retirement because Ofori-Atta and Gabby and everybody will look after him; Bumpty and co will all look after him,” Mr. Mahama said.
Already, the Akufo-Addo government has been nicknamed the Akyem Sakawa Mafia as a result of endless corruption scandals that directly benefit the President’s family.
Resigned Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has also called Akufo-Addo the “mother serpent of corruption”.
Other family members directly involved in the widely perceived loot of State money include First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, whose Foundation has been siphoning money from the GNPC and his three daughters, who have been receiving State money through an NGO they set up called My Sister’s Keepers.
The NDC Presidential Candidate said in addition to looting the State’s coffers, President Akufo-Addo has also ruined the finances of the country with his incessant appetite for borrowing and poor governance.
He points out that when he was President, the government had stopped borrowing from the Central Bank and had put the economy on a sound footing. However, the Akufo-Addo government has reversed gains and is now borrowing from the Central Bank.
“By the time we left office in 2016, I will tell you this and most Ghanaians don’t know. We finance the budget from our own revenue we didn’t borrow one cedi from the Central Bank; the first time in Ghana’s history. Everything that we financed the budget with in 2016 we did zero Central Bank financing. Nana Addo’s administration, had taken over with the additional oil revenue and things we would have just continued fiscal consolidation with growth and you would have felt the prosperity within the system. Instead, they jettisoned everything and decided to go on their own track,” Mahama fired.