The Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng has slapped 17 counts of criminal charges against, Adjenim Boateng Adjei, the disgraced former Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) who was caught in the investigative documentary ‘Contracts for Sale’ scandal.
According to a statement released on May 18, 2022, by the Special Prosecutor, the corruption-prone Adjei was charged with eight counts of using public office for profit and nine counts of directly and indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract.
He was charged alongside his brother-in-law, Francis Kwaku Arhin, who is facing a charge of using public office for profit.
The two culprits will be arraigned before a high court on May 25, 2022.
In 2019, investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni had tracked a paper trail of a company known as Talent Discovery Limited (TDL) owned by Mr. Adjei and used to dubiously secure government contracts through restricted tendering and selling those contracts to others for profit.
At the time he was using his private company to line his pocket, he was the boss of the PPA which was responsible for the scrutiny of government contracts
With his dubious act, Adjei had amassed over US$ 5 million in less than two years.
On October 25, 2019, the Auditor-General at the time, Yaw Domelevo issued a report showing that AB Adjei operated three main accounts: A cedi account, a dollar account and a Euro account into which he had stashed the stolen money.
From March 2017 when he was appointed to the PPA position to August 2019 when he was kicked out, AB Adjei had siphoned some GHC 20.7 million into his personal account. For his Dollar Account, AB Adjei had stolen up to US$ 4.5 million in two years.
A review of his account by the Auditor-General, it states: “Our review of the 2015 and 2016 aspects of the Bank Statements from Stanbic Bank submitted showed that monthly deposits/receipts into MR. A.B Adjei’s Accounts within 2015 and 2016 range from GHC 9,000.00 to GHC 118,000.00 and $200 to $1000.00…”
AB Adjei’s fraudulent exploits at the PPA broke on Wednesday, 21st August 2019, when Joy TV News aired a documentary produced by Manasseh titled “Contracts for Sale”.
In the documentary, AB Adjei was caught ambushing public procurement contracts and channelling them through his private company TDL. Most of the contracts never went through the required procurement process and were sole-sourced to his company.
After much public outcry, President Akufo Addo was forced to suspend AB Adjei from the PPA and the matter was subsequently referred to CHRAJ and the Office of the Special Prosecutor for investigation and appropriate action.