President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is coming under intense pressure from anti-graft bodies and a section of the public demanding full disclosure of actions taken after investigations into the botched fraud involving the concessionaire agreement that handed over assets of the Electricity Company of Ghana, ECG to the Power Distribution Services (PDS).
The development follows the loud silence, a year on after President Nana Akufo Addo’s own pledge in the wake of public outcry following revelations in leaked documents, which was further fuelled by conflicting statements from government officials, which fuelled suspicions about high profile involvement.
This was after an alleged telephone conversation involving the President’s nephew, Gabby Otchere-Darko who some describe as Ghana’s de facto Prime Minister, Philip Ayensu who was a board member of PDS and blood brother Edward Akufo-Addo, also known as Bumpty, on the shareholding structure, went viral.
Days after the public began scrutinizing the transactions, the President left the country to Angola, where critics suspected it was a planned trip to engage other actors involved for a possible cover-up.
Addressing the Ghanaian community in Angola, precisely on Thursday, August 8, 2019, President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo, admitted the scam and assured the public of transparency.
“It turned out that there are problems with this guarantee.
Subsequently, we discovered that some of the financial instruments put in place were not in order…and we decided that the first thing to do was to protect the public assets by suspending the agreement and returning ECG’s assets whilst a process of investigation was being carried out.”
He assured …..“They (referring to the Ghanaian delegation) had met them (Al Koot Insurance and Reinsurance). They are on their way back. By the time I get back to Accra tomorrow (Friday), we will know exactly where we are.”
One year down the line, government has been silent on what critics describe as the biggest corruption scandal in Ghana’s history.
The public concern follows revelations that over GHS1.5 billion paid to the defunct PDS in the form of electricity bills from March 1st, 2019 to October 18th, 2019 when the concession agreement was in force, cannot be accounted for.
It is also public knowledge that PDS used part of this amount, about US$11.25 million to finance the Insurance Guarantee from the Qatar-based Reinsurance company, Alkoot, which was later found to be fraudulent and invalid.Besides the criminal implications of the well-planned attempt to shortchange the state, Ghana also lost a colossal sum […]