As Corruption Cases Pile Up
TNR Files
The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) regional executive elections last Saturday were meant to be a show of force, a display of unity ahead of the 2024 polls. Instead, what unfolded was a ghost town – and a damning silence from the very appointees who once ran the affairs of this nation.
As delegates gathered across the country on August 15 to elect new regional executives, one glaring absence was impossible to ignore: the men and women who served in the Akufo-Addo government were nowhere to be found. The usual euphoria, the glad-handing, the cash spraying all of it was missing. But why?
The New Republic can authoritatively reveal that this was no accident. According to impeccable sources, it was a well-orchestrated strategy by the embattled former appointees to stay away and for good reason. They were running from the very delegates they once swore to serve.
“They knew if they showed up, they would be ambushed,” a party insider disclosed to this paper. “Delegates are angry. They want answers. They want to know where the millions went.”
While these appointees played the pauper during the 2024 campaign, begging for funds and pleading poverty, they were allegedly living large on the taxpayer’s dime. The evidence is now stacking up in courtrooms across Accra, with a litany of scandals that paint the erstwhile administration as one of the most corrupt in Ghana’s history.
Consider the evidence:
· The Sky Train Scandal: A whopping $2 million gone with the wind.
· The NSS Payroll Fraud: A staggering GH¢548 million stolen from the state – described by the Attorney General as one of the most egregious public payroll frauds in recent history.
· The Buffer Stock Heist: Former boss Hanan Abdul-Wahab Aludiba, his wife, and three accomplices are in the dock over GH¢78 million in theft and money laundering.
· The NPA Extortion Racket: Former CEO Mustapha Abdul-Hamid and nine others are facing trial over a GH₵280 million scheme.
· The IMCCoD Diversion: Dennis Miracles Aboagye and a former accountant are being investigated by EOCO over GH¢55 million in diverted public funds.
· The NSB Fraud: Former Director General Kwabena Adu-Boahene, his wife, and two others are in court over GH₵49 million moved into private accounts.
And the list goes on from the National Lottery Authority to the Ministry of Education, with names like Sammi Awuku and NAPO now synonymous with scandal.
Perhaps the most unforgivable betrayal is this: while these appointees were allegedly stuffing their pockets, the party’s grassroots were left to beg for crumbs. The 2024 campaign of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was a shadow of what it should have been under-resourced, underfunded, and ultimately, a failure.
Then-Minister for Information Fatima Abubakar openly cried about the party’s financial struggles. Now we know why. The money was there it was just being funneled into private accounts, with cronies and spouses enjoying the spoils.
Today, some of these same appointees have run for cover seeking refuge in Parliament to escape the long arm of the law. As MPs, they enjoy parliamentary privilege, meaning they cannot be arrested while attending the august house.
Minority Leader Alex Afenyo-Markin and MP Kojo Oppong Nkrumah have already admitted they have credible intelligence that several of their members are on the government’s radar.
Speculation is rife. Sammi Awuku, the MP for Akuapem North and former NLA boss, was rumored to have been arrested over the weekend a claim he has since denied. Then there is Kingsley Agyeman, MP for Abuakwa South and former head of the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, whose scholarship scheme has been described as a “ridiculous” waste of millions of pounds.
Even Ghana’s High Commissioner to the UK, Sabah Zita Benson, has called for his arrest, fuming: “People must refund!”
The NPP’s grassroots are furious. They have abandoned these appointees in their hour of need, refusing to follow them to court or protest their arrests. The party has been forced to hire ghetto youths to stage protests youths who don’t even know who they’re agitating for.
Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) is now a masterstroke, and the net is closing in. The question is no longer if these appointees will face justice but when.
For now, they remain in hiding, praying their parliamentary immunity holds. But the people are watching. And they will not forget.