Ken Ofori-Atta, Jubilee House Smuggling In “Notoriously” Fraudulent Agyapa Deal Again

Individuals bent on state capturing Ghana’s mineral royalties in the Akufo Addo administration are once more secretly pushing to resurrect the “fraudulent” Agyapa Royalties deal spearheaded by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

The agreement, which was dubiously approved by the Seventh Parliament on Friday, August 14, 2020, was eventually shot down after a corruption-risk assessment conducted by then-Special Prosecutor, Martin Alamisi Amidu revealed a dirty trail of corruption pointing to Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta-a nephew of President Akufo Addo.

According to Asaase Radio, a radio station owned by Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, the notorious cousin of President Akufo Addo, the Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng-led Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) is allegedly “redesigning” the flagged Agyapa deal for a listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

This is in spite of the fact that the dubious deal has been linked to a group of faceless individuals suspected to be fronting for individuals at the Jubilee House, including Ken Ofori-Atta and President Akufo Addo as inferred by Martin Amidu who is currently in exile after his explosive corruption assessment report on the Agyapa deal.

Martin Amidu had categorically stated that President Akufo Addo had a personal interest in the deal and had attempted to arm-twist him from publishing his damning findings on the corruption-soaked deal.

In his parting shot, Martin Amidu described President Akufo Addo as the “mother serpent of corruption” for his antics in the Agyapa deal.

During the commotion over the legitimacy of the deal, it was revealed that the future value of the mineral funds passed through Agyapa Royalties owned by a group of unidentified “investors” have been deliberately undervalued and Ghanaian tax laws and other regulations had been decimated to favour the deal.

According to the Finance Ministry, the majority of Ghana’s Mineral royalties will be entrusted to Agyapa which would allegedly “monetise” it on the international money market. But experts have debunked the value that the Finance Ministry placed on the royalties.

Both the Economist Magazine and Ghanaians policy think-tank IMANI Africa thinks that the future value of the royalties should be at least US$ 2.5 billion instead of the US$1 billion being quoted by Ofori-Atta’s Finance Ministry.

The entire shady Agyapa deal was directly hatched under the auspices of Mr. Ofori-Atta through his investment firm Databank Financial Services.

It was Databank, through a front company in South Africa called Imara Corporate Finance (PTY) Limited that handed the juicy legal advisory role in the Agyapa deal to Gabby’s legal firm, African Legal Services.

Whatsup News has intercepted the single most important smoking gun that squarely points to the fact that Mr. Ofori-Atta through his South African associates distributed the goodies of the Agyapa deal to family members and friends of President Akufo Addo-his uncle.

Incidentally, Kissi Agyabeng, the current Special Prosecutor who took over from Martin Amidu, was a lawyer for Mr. Otchere-Darko during the Agyapa deal and had sought to cover up Mr. Otchere-Darko’s connection to the deal.

When the lid was blown off the cover, Kissi Agyabeng wrote to the Accra-based Herald Newspaper which had made some reports about the deal, claiming Gabby’s law firm was not engaged through Ken Ofri-Atta’s nepotism, but that the law firm was engaged on merit by the South African company Imara Pty.

“It would have also revealed that the international law firm did not outsource legal work to Africa Legal Associates on the Agyapa Royalties Limited transaction. But that Africa Legal Associates was engaged by Imara Corporate Finance (Pty) Limited,” Gabby’s lawyers wrote to the Herald.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Asempa in late August 2020, Gabby has given a totally different explanation. He told his interviewer: “International Lawyers or firms have local partners and that is how my firm came in”. According to him, his firm works with White and Case and since the UK-based law firm won the bid to be transaction advisors to the Agyapa deal, it was natural that Gabby’s law firm represents its UK partners.

“We work with them…we are partners and we do a lot of work. It is common, it is not as if Charles Adu Boahene or Ken Ofori-Atta sat somewhere and handed us the project,” Gabby said.

However, it was soon revealed that Imara was simply taking orders from Ken Ofori-Atta Databank.

Earlier, Whatsup News had intercepted a mandate agreement between Ken Ofori-Atta and the South Africa-based Imara PTY showing that It was Ken Ofori-Atta’s Databank that mandated Imara to contract both White and Case and Gabby’s law firms separately and not because Gabby’s law firm was working as an associate of White and Case.

In one of his rare interviews with Peace FM’s Kwame Sefa Kayi, Ken Ofori-Atta sought to maintain the cover-up narrative when he said “This transaction is with Bank of America which is the main transaction advisor. They have a group of lawyers they work with and they work with an international law firm in London called White and Case. Usually, these international law firms have affiliates and associates in Ghana and that’s where Gabby’s law firm happens to be an associate.”

The Finance Minister created the impression that he was not involved in the day-to-day activities of Databank, “I don’t sit on the board [of Databank]” he said.

On Wednesday, September 30, 2020, Whatsup News published contents of an intercepted mandate agreement between Imara and Databank, signed at the Finance Ministry, where Mr. Ofori-Atta happens to be the minister.

The agreement dated April 30, 2020, saw Imara and Databank explicitly agreeing that Imara Finance would represent the interest of Databank, a company belonging to the Finance Minister who is incidentally the main champion of the Agyapa deal.

The agreement essentially proved that Ken Ofori-Atta used his privileged position at the Finance Ministry to contract the Agyapa Royalties transaction advisory contract to himself.