“Octopus” Gabby Wants GHC 12.8 Billion Financial Loss Swept Under the Carpet. -As Government Comes Under Pressure to Prosecute Culprits

Gabby Asare Otchere Darko, the notorious cousin of President Akufo Addo who has no portfolio in the government, but is regarded as the main driver of Akufo Addo’s policies, is claiming the GHC 12.8 billion financial loss captured in the Auditor-General’s (A-G)’s report should be brushed aside because it constitutes “spreading propaganda”.

“This deliberate lie is being spread wide like wildfire across the country and with devastating effect as very little effort are being employed to counter it,” Otchere-Darko said in a Facebook post.

He then proceeds to spread his own misinformation and unsubstantiated argument, claiming the majority of the GHC 12.8 billion financial loss are mere outstanding loans between public institutions.

About GHC 10 billion of the financial loss is categorized as outstanding debt recoveries.

However, the facts are that the timeline for these amounts to be repaid has expired-something that Otchere-Darko admitted, and there is no way whatsoever to determine when they would ever be recovered.

Also, Mr. Otchere-Darko conveniently skipped over the fact that about 20% of the huge financial loss was clearly indicated by the A-G to be as a result of procurement, payroll, cash and contract irregularities that definitely border on corruption.

Consequently, the 2020 A-G’s on public accounts says that the country lost over Ghc12.8billion to irregularities relating to outstanding loans and the aforementioned contract and cash irregularities.

Ghanaians, especially the opposition NDC has been remonstrating over the loss of the money especially as the Akufo-Addo government seeks to tax Ghanaians’ savings with the obnoxious e-levy that is estimated to rake in less than GHC 7 billion.

Legal luminary, Professor Kwaku Asare, aka Kwaku Azar, has called for the surcharge and prosecution of those behind over Ghc12 billion that according to the Auditor General’s 2020 report was lost to the state.

In a write-up, Prof. Azar points out that the government has brought heavy hands-on others out of government who have caused even less loss to the state and therefore has no justification to treat those behind the loss with kid’s gloves.

According to Prof. Kwaku Azar, who is a member of the Center for Democratic Development (CDD), trivializing the issue is unacceptable, describing it as “a creeping and dangerous tendency to trivialize irregularities reported by the Auditor-General. “

“We have closed down banks that are run this way exactly because such irregularities lead to financial disaster. We cannot now be heard saying that it is not a big deal that our public boards dispense loans with such reckless abandon,” he wrote.

“The irregularities represent either losses that had been incurred by the State through the impropriety or lack of probity in the actions and decisions of public officers or on the other hand, the savings that could have been made if public officials and Institutions had duly observed the public financial management framework put in place to guide their conduct and also safeguard national assets and resources.”

As had been the usual practice in the country, the A-G’s report will become a talk shop and culprits would be allowed to walk free.