Prosecute Gyan Baffuor & Akoto Osei - Group

A pro-democracy and economic think tank, the Ghana Development Centre (GhDC) is calling for the prosecution of two former Deputy Ministers for Finance and Economic Planning and a former Director of Budget for the misapplication of a total of six million Ghana Cedis (GH¢6,000,000.00) from the Consolidated Fund between April and October 2008. A statement signed by the Communications Director of GhDC, Samuel George, said the disbursement of funds from the Consolidated Fund without the approval of parliament was unconstitutional and a breach of financial discipline. “We also note that the misapplication of the funds meant for the repayment of the TOR debt, and others statutory activities combined to deny other sectors of our economy of funds approved for their use”, the statement added. Contrary to Section 6(1) of the Debt Recovery (Tema Oil Refinery Company) Fund Act of 2003, the NPP administration of John Agyekum Kufuor caused a former Director of Budget Kwabena Adjei-Mensah to authorize the transfer of one million, five hundred Ghana Cedis (GH¢1,500,000.00) from the Fund’s account at the Bank of Ghana for a Government Communication Strategy. The relevant section states that, “the monies assigned to the Fund shall only be disbursed for the purpose of payment of debts incurred by the Tema Oil Refinery Company and any interest accruing on those debts.” According to the statement, the Ministry of Information & National Orientation under Messrs Oboshie Sai Cofie and Stephen Asamoah Boateng has not been able to explain how the total amount of GH¢6m including the TOR debt fund’s GH¢1.5m was expended. The GhDC says it is even more surprising that former deputy finance ministers, Dr. Akoto Osei and Professor Gyan Baffuor, were the ones who supervised this activities and personally signed off letters instructing the Controller and Accountant General to withdraw a total of GH¢4.5m from the Divestiture Proceeds Account (No. 0124 2600 21000), HIPC Initiative Account (No. 0121 3600 14039) and the account of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative at the Bank of Ghana. In calling on the government through the Attorney General to prosecute Professor Gyan Baffour, Dr. Akoto Osei and Kwabena Adjei-Mensah, the GhDC is of the firm belief that it will serve as a deterrent to other government officials who will also be habouring thoughts of squandering the peoples’ money on unapproved activities. “We also demand that, failing his inability to disclose the identities of journalists, editors and party serial callers that he claims were on his payroll and benefitted from the funds released to his ministry, Mr. Asamoah Boateng must be made to refund the unaccounted for monies or be duly prosecuted.”