President Nana Dankwa Addo Akufo-Addo is coming under an intense and ever rising 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).
It is four months to general elections and a rather sensitive time for the President to be seen as shielding perceived corrupt deals within the government he leads, especially when it involves persons publicly known to be close to him.
The rising calls for full disclosure follows the loud silence, a year on, after President Nana Akufo Addo’s own personal pledge to investigate the matter in the wake of public outcry following revelations in leaked documents, which was further fuelled by conflicting statements from government officials, which sparked suspicions about high profile involvement.
This was after viral reports of a supposed telephone conversation involving persons close to the President and Philip Ayensu who was a board member of PDS and his biological brother Edward Akufo-Addo, also known as Bumpty, on the shareholding structure, became topical news.
Days after the public begun scrutinizing the transactions, the President left the country to Angola, a trip which critics suspected was also used to engage other stakeholders on how to handle a clear looming scandal.
Addressing the Ghanaian community in Angola, precisely on Thursday, August 8, 2019, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo , admitted the scam and gave an assurance to the public that there would be total 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 return ECG’s assets whilst a process of investigation was being carried out.
“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,” he told his audience.
One year down the line, government has been strangely silent on what critics describe as one of the biggest corruption scandals in Ghana’s history.
The public concern follows reports that over GH¢1.5 billion paid to the defunct PDS in the form of electricity bills from March 1, 2019 […]
