-Calls For Resignation Heighten
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is popping up as the key player in the chess game of the fraudulent payment of US$ 2.85 million to Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, the notorious cousin of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for the dubious supply of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines to Ghana.
A leaked April 6, 2021 letter from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to the Controller and Accountant General’s Department reveals that the Finance Minister, who controls the Controller and Accountant General in cahoots with the embattled Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, had raised a letter of credit through the Accountant General for the payment of US$2.85 million to the Dubai Shiekh Al Maktuom.
In the referenced BOG/ILGGOV210404, the head of Banking Department wrote: “We refer to your letter dated 31st March 2021…We hereby advise that we have established the Letter of Credit (LC) valued at USD 2,850,000.00 in favour of THE PRIVATE OFFICE OF SHEIK AHMED BIN DALMOOOK AL MAKTUOM on 1st April 2021 through Ghana International Bank PLC, London.”
That letter was first copied to Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta and then Agyeman-Manu.
Yet, in late July 2021, when Agyeman-Manu faced a nine-member ad hoc committee of Parliament probing the dubious transaction and told them to their faces that no money had been paid to the Sheikh Al Maktuom, the Finance Minister feigned ignorance of the clear deception and issued no official statement to correct the clear perjury by Kwaku Agyeman-Manu.
This is not the first time that Ken Ofori-Atta has been fingered in high-profile scandals and fraudulent attempts at state capture. He was a primary person of interest in both the multi-million Power Distribution Services (PDS) and Agyapa Royalty scandals. Before then, he has been fingered in allegedly planting his fronting companies in the Exon Mobile and Aker Energy crude oil deals.
In this instance, The lawmakers were probing the fraudulent nature in which the health ministry contracted some 3.4 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines to Sheikh Al Maktoum, without proper procurement processes or the constitutionally required approval from the Ghanaian Parliament for such an international deal.
When grilled, Agyeman-Manu claimed that “to the best of my knowledge” no money had been paid to the Arab Sheikh.
Oliver Barker-Vormavor, one of the conveners of the #FixTheCountry youth movement against the corrupt Ghanaian system, opined that Agyeman-Manu may have been a mere stooge of Ken Ofori-Atta and that he tried to cryptically convey this when he said: “to the best of his knowledge” no money was paid.
“When a person says, to the best of my knowledge, no money has been paid. The person is not saying that, I actually don’t know and I don’t remember so all I am doing here is to hazard a guess. The person is saying that «I have marshaled all the best resources of my knowledge and memory; and I can say categorically that if any money was paid, it was definitely made on my blindside,” Mr. Baker-Vormavor wrote on Facebook.
“If the facts establish that amounts paid were definitely not made on your blindside and that you were actually involved, « to the best of my knowledge is not a get out of jail clause.
We need a larger probe of the entire COVID-19 pandemic management. Yes the Health Minister must be prosecuted, but many more must face the law; like all citizens.”
The Coalition for Social Justice (CSJ) a civil society organisation, is also convinced that Ken Ofori-Atta was a major culprit in the dubious deal.
A statement from the CSJ today, August 10, 2021, and made available to Whatsup News reads: “Hon. Ken Ofori Atta must equally be made to face the music for issuing advanced payment to the Supplier without the consent of the contracting ministry. What was his interest in the transaction that motivated him to ignore the Health Minister on such a decision?
Meanwhile, the National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused charged Ken Ofori-Atta as a person of interest in the dubious deal, calling him the “chief culprit”.
“Why is no one calling for the head of this corrupt Finance Minister? Is it because he is the cousin of the President?” he quizzed in a statement today.
“Why are we over-concentrating on the Health Minister in the discussion about the botched Sputnik Vaccine Supply deal when the chief culprit is none other than the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, who without Parliamentary approval, paid a whopping 160 billion old Ghana cedis [sic] to the Dubai Sheikh?”
Interestingly, after the conspiracy had been busted, Agyeman Manu on August 2, 2021, wrote a letter to Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, to retrieve the amounts paid to him. The Sheikh has since responded in the affirmative.
The Sheikh was given the fraudulent contract to supply 3.4 million doses of the vaccines to Ghana, and that the first batch should be 300,000. Yet, the conniving Finance Minister authorised the payment of 50% of the value of the 300,000 vaccines to the Shiekh even though he supplied only 20,000 doses.
The Committee in its report on the dubious transaction admitted that Agyeman-Manu did not comply with the requirements of Article 181(5) of the Constitution in respect of its agreement with an intermediary, Messrs Al Maktoum.
The committee also determined that the agreements were entered into without prior approval by the Public Procurement Authority under Sections 40 and 41 of Act 663.