Information available to The Fourth Estate indicates that the dismissed chief executive officer of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Adjenim Boateng Adjei, has withdrawn all the money from his bank accounts that were frozen when investigations into his activities began.
According to our sources, he cleared his accounts of all the funds before the current Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, took office.
One of the major revelations in the “Contracts for Sale” scandal that saw the dismissal of Mr Adjei was the huge amount of “unexplained” money found to have been deposited into his bank accounts while he was in office.
Mr. Adjei was in office for two and a half years and more than GHc41 million cedis was paid in cash into his Cedi, Dollar and Euro accounts.
Following the “Contracts for Sale” investigative documentary produced by Manasseh Azure Awuni, President Akufo-Addo suspended AB Adjei in August 2019.
The investigation revealed that Mr. Adjei formed a company, Talent Discovery Limited, with his brother-in-law after his appointment as the CEO of the PPA. This company won a number of government contracts through the restrictive tendering method. The contracts were approved by the PPA board of which Mr. Adjei was a member.
Talent Discovery Limited, the investigations found, did not have the capacity to execute the contracts. It then sold the contracts to individuals and companies without the knowledge or approval of the awarding entities.
Beyond the suspension, the president referred Mr. Adjei to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate his conduct.
The Ghana Integrity Initiative, Ghana’s chapter of Transparency International, also petitioned CHRAJ to probe Mr. Adjei and the board of the PPA for their role in the scandal.
In 2020, CHRAJ released its investigative report on the president’s petition. It found Mr Adjei guilty of conflict of interest and other offences.
CHRAJ banned Mr Adjei from holding public office for 10 years. He appealed the ban at the high court and lost.
CHRAJ also revealed that the total amount in Mr. Adjei’s accounts since he assumed office in 2017 stood at GHc14.8 million.
“We find the Respondent’s [Mr. Adjei’s] explanation completely unsatisfactory and that he could not explain the source of the large volumes of excess wealth that passed through his bank accounts between March 2017 and August 2019 (unexplained wealth),” CHRAJ’s report said.
The Special Prosecutor at the time, Martin ABK Amidu, released a press statement in which he commended CHRAJ for its report.
“The only problem with the CHRAJ report is that for some reason it understates the amounts disclosed by the bank statements from the three bank accounts of Mr. Adjei exhaustively reviewed by the Auditor-General and this Office,” Mr Amidu said.
The Special Prosecutor disclosed that from 2017 to August 19, 2019, Mr. Adjei had 15,691,559.30 Cedis, USD 4,467,655 and 54,500 Euros deposited into his three bank accounts.
Both CHRAJ and the Special Proscutor at the time said prior to assuming office, the amounts deposited into Mr Adjei’s accounts were insignificant when compared with what went into his account during his time in office.
In fact, the CHRAJ Report said “the Respondent [Mr. Adjei] opened USD Account Number 9040002473180 at the Stanbic Bank on 03 April 2017, after his appointment as CEO of PPA.”
Martin Amidu said, “I froze the bank accounts of all the suspects together with their legal entities.”
Information available to The Fourth Estate, however, indicates all the monies in the accounts have been withdrawn.
Our sources say, the freezing order expired and Mr. Adjei applied to the court to have it lifted. The sources say the OSP could not have kept the account frozen for more than 12 months without acting on the reason for which the account was frozen.
The Fourth Estate’s sources further revealed that when Martin Amidu resigned from office in 2020, investigations into the “Contracts for Sale” scandal stalled.
In the intervening period between his resignation and the assumption of office of his successor, AB Adjei went to court and had the freezing order lifted.
He then proceeded to clear all the funds in the various accounts he held.
According to sources, other state agencies such as the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) could have frozen the accounts when the OSP’s order had expired. If this was done, the accounts would still remain frozen by the time the case was ready for prosecution.
The FIC, according to sources, is the body that could have flagged and dealt with the huge sums of cash deposits passing through Mr. Adjei’s accounts even if he was not involved in the “Contracts for Sale” scandal.
In February 2022, the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, said his office would soon announce the conclusion and further actions to be taken on three corruption-related cases soon.
The three were among 45 corruption cases that were being investigated by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), and the “Contracts for Sale” was one of the three.
It is yet to be seen whether the prosecution would focus on Mr. Adjei’s and his company’s involvement in the sale of the government contracts or the “unexplained” wealth he accumulated while in office or both.
The sad truth is that government is simply not interested in this case. As far as they are concerned his suspension is more than enough a punishment. This country is a failed state!
I pray to the almighty God to inspire this OSP and other relevant bodies to see the need of saving our country from corruption. I have been asking myself who could be the messiah to take Ghana out of this challenges. There’s no way I can trust the Minority parties especially the NDC neither do I have confidence in the present Government. But I trust there’re individuals who if given the opportunity could do much in limiting corruption.
After redrawing all the monies in his account you are still praying for the OSP to take this matter on ? lol.
The savior of this nation is the people of Ghana.
We have corrupt leaders because damn electorates continue to vote for them without holding them accountable .
we defend these leaders on tribal grounds even when they are caught in the act .
until we change our way of voting and holding leaders accountable, we will never have a good leader.
Sometimes, one is left demoralised!
Afternoon painstakingly going through a lot as a journalist to expose corruption, state institutions mandated to enforce the law don’t even see the need to do that simply because they are either in bed with the corrupt officials or they have a party interest to protect. Ghana is doomed!
What a country we live in. No patriotism at all.
God punish all the collaborators on this and their unrepentant generations
Am pained for campaigning for this corrupt short-devil.
Nana Addo has everything to do with this man’s wealth.
God does not sleep!!
Our leaders only care about their pockets. They don’t even think about the people they are leading, and it’s sad.
When poeple were shot in the 80s,People did understand and were wailing for their souls,you see corruption will kill Ghanaians in their millions if we fail to kill Corruption.
Allow the Special Prosecutor to continue sleeping. The sleeping dose given is for eternity.
That is what happens when almost everybody around relishes part of the booty. Continue to do your best, the fourth estate. We shall get there one day.
This Nana Addo administration shall remain extensively corrupt, greedy and insensitive to ever govern this country. Some highly placed government officials had an interest in ABA Adjei’s booty thus they clandestinely assisted him or looked elsewhere while he moved those huge sums of cash from those accounts.
There is no way that huge sums of nm money could have been moved from any accounts in Ghana without the relevant authorities noticing and flagging the same unless some powerful men and women in this cursed NPP administration had an interest in the secret movement of that ill-gotten wealth from the accounts.
Ooooh Ghana, hmmmmm.
It’s very sad the country we’re living in. This country is soaked with corruption. May God help us.
This is so disgusting and dis heartening. Daylight robbery that must be resisted with all the might of the People!
This country will never be better, certainly not under any black politician, plus this archaic personality-serving constitution.
Just a matter of time, we’ll all leave for studies and seek naturalization in the WEST where humans made in the likeness of the Almighty God lead..
Y3y3 mmoa pii..
so sad but when the mother serpent of corruption is at the helms, what do we expect?
What an interesting name, Talent Discovery Limited, and they were discovering talents in procurement breaches and thievery.
Are We safe, The Bank officials including whoever influenced that must not go free. What kind of Nation are we building?
I’m sad after reading this report;may the good Lord save this country of some of these corrupt leaders.
These amounts are huge . Don’t tell me the authorities were unaware . EOCO, FIC, Bank of Ghana all conveniently looked away…..?
May God save this country. If all the facts outlined here is what it is, then we have a big problem on our hands. God has done a lot for this country. Men are simply not ready to play their part.
Let us all be reminded that we can make all the money we want especially the ill gotten once but if God says you won’t enjoy it you will not. God is in charge of this country as recent as this moment. Let us all be very careful.
15,691,559.30 Cedis, USD 4,467,655 and 54,500 Euros …Really? For just one public servant in office for less than 3 years?
4 million dollars. Wow.
I am an accountant and currently enrolling in law programme as well. This is educative and an eye opener for complicated schemes which one may fall prey to be part of a board/management or legal team like this and end up implicating oneself without knowing their real intentions. Most grateful for your work.
Politics as practiced in Ghana is a cartel run by likeminded people who seek their parochial interest to satisfy their greed. Doing politics is highly expensive and hence a politician would need the support of many rich folks. As soon as you win power, it becomes the pay back time, since the politician can’t just give out the money, a contract has to be awarded, whether genuine or not, OSP and others are all controlled by the president don’t forget.
This has been my thinking every time. Our politics is now for the highest bidder. We don’t care about how the political parties finance both their internal and national election campaigns yet we expect them to soundly manage the national coffers. This thought, however requires a much bigger and lagger national discourse to decide which way we must go. We obviously cannot eat our cake and have it back.
The judge who lifted the ban on the accounts must also be investigated.
The blame should be put on the president of Ghana. He is the only man who is accountable to the people who are the victims of corruption. The appointees who carry out these acts of corruption got the opportunity because of the president. Our anger must be directed at the president. Corruption can only be solved by restructuring the presidency with the aim of weakening its over-arching control over appointments and offices which thus fall to the machinations of the corrupt. Better checks and balances, reduced powers of the presidency, creating more elected positions at local and regional government levels will help to reduce the chances for corruption.