Audit Indicts KMA Nominee For Misapplication Of Common Fund Money

An audit report on the stewardship of the former Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso in the Ashanti Region, Kennedy Kwasi Kankam, has indicted him for misapplying his share of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF).

He is alleged to have instructed the transfer of GHS500, 000 from the DACF to a private bank account from which the money was disbursed to 430 constituents as loans.

Following the gesture, no effort has been made to retrieve the money from the beneficiaries according to the audit report.

“The [then] Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso (Hon. Kennedy Kwasi Kankam) together with erstwhile Finance Officer (Mr. Daniel Kofi Kankam) and Coordinating Director (Mr. Samuel Donkor) transferred a total amount of GH₵500,000.00 from the MPs Constituency Labour Project Fund and Social Investment Fund to [a privately-owned bank] …for onward disbursement to 430 people on loan, recoverable by August 2020,” reads the report.

“But as of January 2021, no recovery had been made, thus exposing the Assembly to a high risk of losing the GHS500, 000.00, which could have funded projects to the benefit of the entire community.” 

It recommended that the former MP and other officials under him should “take steps to recover the amount into the KMA Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso’s Common Fund account.”

The report comes at a time when Mr. Kankam has been vetted for the position of Metropolitan Chief Executive for the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly.

The former MP is vying for the position in a contest with the current Mayor for KMA, Osei Assibey Antwi, Collins Owusu Amankwah, a former MP for Manhyia North, and the current Ashanti Regional Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party, Sam Payne

Mr. Kankam’s chase of the Mayoral job comes after losing the New Patriotic Party’s primary ahead of election 2020 to Stephen Amoah, who eventually replaced him as MP for the Nhyiaeso Constituency.