Botched Agyapa deal to get forensic audit

Edem Senanu, Executive Director for the Citizen Movement against Corruption, has called for a forensic audit to get to the minutest detail of the USD$12 million spent on the botched Agyapa deal and to prosecute any individual engaged in any wrongdoing.

Speaking on TV3’s Ghana Tonight programme on Thursday, February 22, the anti-graft campaigner maintained that “people have become so complacent” in the fight against corruption.

“This is the kind of thing that needs a forensic audit; let us get to the minutest details,” said Mr Senanu, adding that “one would not have imagined that as much as 12 million dollars had already been put into this so-called deal.”

“It is actually shocking to hear these details at this point and if PAC [Public Accounts Committee] knows that it does not have the space to do a thorough investigation, I think it ought to be demanding a very detailed audit of what transpired,” he told Alfred Ocansey.

He continued that if there is prosecution after a thorough audit, then whoever must be prosecuted should be prosecuted.

“This should not wait for a new government. It is something that ought to be thoroughly investigated, and sanctions are applied even now if necessary,” Mr. Senanu added.

However, he emphasised that the Public Accounts Committee must be allowed to receive all the necessary details it may have requested before other bodies, such as the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), can take the matter up to investigate further.

“I think that because it is in the bosom of the Public Accounts Committee at the moment, we probably need to give [them] a few more weeks for them to have gotten to a point where another entity taking it up may be a useful thing.

“We probably may not be helping the process if we ask a different group, even though in my view the Public Accounts Committee may not be ceded with the time and resources to do a thorough investigation at which there has to be something like the Office of the Special Prosecutor or some other entity to look at it more thoroughly,” he stated.

Background

It has emerged, per disclosures by the Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF), Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng, that the government committed some $12 million to the failed Agyapa Gold Royalties arrangement, which came under intense public scrutiny sometime in the year 2020.

When quizzed whether the Fund did due diligence in the amount it expended, Nana Yaw Koranteng told the committee, “My understanding, honourable chair, is that the Ministry of Finance procured the services of international consultancy and companies and financial institutions that have done this in the past and that the advice provided was what the Ministry of Finance stood on.”

“We started with the Ministry of Finance and from the documents that we have, it is clear that the correct advice was provided on the set-up of a gold royalties company where the streaming of the royalties would benefit Ghana.”

NDC to investigate $12 million spent on botched Agyapa deal

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition NDC and flag bearer, former President John Mahama, has served notice that the next NDC government, if voted into office, will investigate and prosecute persons involved in the “stinking 12 million dollar expenditure” made on the botched Agyapa deal.

The party’s National Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, disclosed this at a press conference dubbed the “Moment of Truth” series on Monday, February 19.