Details 118 Flashes of a Troubled Tenure
In the cold light of electoral defeat, the ledger of the Akufo-Addo administration (2017–2024) is being reopened. Not by the his successor alone, but by the accumulating weight of audit reports, parliamentary records, and investigative journalism. What emerges is not a simple narrative of alleged malfeasance, but a sprawling atlas of governance failures, some confirmed, others contested, many simply left hanging in the air like dust over a galamsey pit.
In a brutal epistle fired by anti-corruption pundit, Kay Cudjoe on his hot social media handles, a no bar holding description of the immediate past NPP regime rehashes how nor to govern a country. And yet, the brake-down is revealing.
Civil society group CDD pegged corruption-related losses at GHc9.6 billion. But the figures, however staggering, tell only part of the story. The full record, catalogued across 118 distinct episodes, reveals a systemic breakdown in institutional integrity. From missing state assets to questionable appointments, from contract scandals to security force violence, the Akufo-Addo years may well be remembered as a period when the lines between state capture and simple incompetence became impossible to discern.
The Looting of the State
The financial irregularities read like a balance sheet of a company in receivership. Auditor-General’s reports flagged GHc697 million in irregularities at the Ministry of Finance alone. The National Youth Authority was caught in a GHc4.5 million sole-sourcing imbroglio. The NHIA haemorrhaged millions: a GHc17 million investment controversy, a GHc62,000 communicators’ meeting, and a confirmed request by a former minister for $8,500 from the authority’s coffers.
At BOST, 600,000 litres of fuel went missing in one instance; on another, 5 million litres of contaminated product created a national logistics crisis. At MASLOC, the microfinance agency meant to empower the poor, auditors uncovered a GHc28.8 million scandal. At the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, GHc1.5 million evaporated into what investigators politely termed “rot.”
The Sovereign as Cash Cow
Perhaps most emblematic was the Agyapa royalties controversy a scheme to monetise the country’s gold income through a Jersey-registered entity. Though contested by its architects as routine financial engineering, the transaction bore the hallmarks of opaque insider benefit that defined the era. It was joined by the PDS concession collapse, a power privatisation deal that unravelled amid mutual accusations, leaving Ghana’s electricity sector in worse shape than before.
Then there were the contracts. Atta Akyea, the Works and Housing Minister, was alleged to have signed contracts worth billions without approval GHc4.4 billion and GHc43.8 billion in separate instances, according to reports. A $961 million housing contract followed. Meanwhile, a $2.2 billion bond issued by Ken Ofori-Atta’s ministry raised conflict-of-interest questions that were never fully put to rest.
The Politics of Plunder
The ruling party’s inner circle did not escape scrutiny. The President’s GHc5 million donation to the NPP was confirmed, raising eyebrows about the use of state resources for partisan purposes.
The Vice-President’s in-law was appointed ambassador to the UAE a move critics called dynastic diplomacy. Appointments of relatives: Osafo-Maafo’s sons to state positions, Stephen Ntim’s controversial tenure at Lands Commission all fuelled perceptions of an administration comfortable with the politics of connection.
Mac Manu’s name surfaced twice: first in a Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority deal that was later retracted amid conflict-of-interest allegations, then in a separate port contract. Kennedy Agyapong’s wife was reported to have secured a GHc100.2 million state contract. Sammy Awuku’s wife was linked to a Free Zones deal. The lines between party, family, and state dissolved.
The Security State Unravelled
The Ayawaso West Wuogon shooting, in which state security forces opened fire on opposition supporters during a by-election, was confirmed by an investigative commission. The Delta Force, a vigilante group aligned with the ruling party, invaded a court in 2017; charges against them were later dropped. “Invisible Forces” commandos seized a passenger trotro confirmed state violence against citizens.
At Flagstaff House, the seat of executive power, guards were confirmed to have committed robbery and rape. A militia training camp was alleged at Osu Castle. The Karaga police station was invaded.
The Tamale Teaching Hospital CEO was chased out by youth activists. The state, it seemed, had lost its monopoly on legitimate force and sometimes deployed illegitimate force with impunity.
The Environmental Toll
The galamsey fight, once a signature promise of the Akufo-Addo presidency, became a graveyard of good intentions. Missing seized excavators. Missing seized gold bars, guns, and pickups.
A presidential staffer caught on video allegedly taking bribes to shield illegal miners. Forestry Commission CEOs linked to the very crime they were meant to police. The EU named and shamed Ghana on its dirty money list, in part due to rosewood trafficking documented by the Environmental Investigation Agency.
The Banality of Waste
Alongside grand corruption sat the merely absurd. GHc3.9 million spent on condoms. GHc100,000 to rename a stadium. GHc800,000 for a website at the Special Development Ministry. $4.5 million for an AFCON appearance. GHc5.6 million for a Ghana@60 parade.
GHc283 million in judgment debts many avoidable. A managing director appointed for the non-existent Keta Port. An anti-snake serum procurement that failed its core purpose.
The 118-point list, compiled by writer Kay Cudjoe, is not a prosecution brief. Some items remain contested; others were never fully investigated. But collectively, they form an indictment of a system that lost its moorings. In the new republic, the question is not whether these events occurred the record shows they did.
The question is whether the institutions designed to prevent such failures will ever be empowered to do so.
For now, the archive stands. A total recall of a tenure that promised transformation but delivered, too often, impunity.