With Ken Ofori-Atta, Agyapa Scam Did It for Me

The one great mistake that the rabidly anti-New Patriotic Party (NPP) media operative and critic Mr. Kwesi Pratt, Jr., is making presently is to facilely assume that since Mr. Kenneth Ofori-Atta was almost unanimously confirmed by the members of both major political parties in Parliament, namely, members of the ruling New Patriotic Party and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), therefore, it goes or went without saying that the fiscal expertise and the managerial competence of the Akufo-Addo-appointed Finance Minister was apt to be reckoned to be kosher or practically impeccable in perpetuity ( See “You Praised and Approved Ofori-Atta Excellently; What Has Changed? – Kwesi Pratt Asks” Peacefmonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 11/13/22).

For this columnist and longstanding ideological and staunch backer of the institutional establishment of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo-inspired New Patriotic Party, it was the at once scandalous and thievish attempt to cream Ghanaian taxpayers and, in effect, the august Democratic Republic of Ghana at large, that fully confirmed for him that the hitherto distinguished and well-respected cofounder of Databank, the pioneering financial investment establishment, was decidedly up to no good, as it were, like the rest of the hoodlum pack and the kleptocratic operatives of the pathologically payola-prone government of former President John “European Airbus Payola” Dramani Mahama. That solid confirmation, of course, came in the form of the auspiciously abortive globally infamous Agyapa Offshore Mineral Investment Deal.

That this inexcusably criminal attempt to literally mortgage the mineral wealth and the natural resources of Ghana for peanuts or absolutely nothing, effectively rendered the ministerial candidacy of the Columbia- and Yale universities-schooled son of the venerable Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta, the renowned lambent-witted Deputy Finance Minister in the Progress Party (PP) government of Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia, all the more untenable and decidedly without merit. But that this dastardly attempt at epically and apocalyptically denuding Ghana of its most valuable resources was so boldly and fearlessly exposed by Mr. Martin ABK Amidu, appointed as Ghana’s first Independent Special Prosecutor, after the latter had been promptly expelled from the cabinet and the government of the late President John Evans “Atta-Woyome” Mills, is unarguably the one indispensable morally redeeming aspect of the otherwise most egregious blunder of President Akufo-Addo in naming, perhaps, the most grossly professionally incompetent candidate for the cranially taxing job of Independent Special Prosecutor.

In brief, but for the indelibly and inexcusably criminal attempt by Mr. Ofori-Atta and, allegedly, some of his relatives and close political associates, including Messrs. Gabriel Asare Otchere-Darko, Charles Adu-Boahen and Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Mr. Amidu would, today, be decidedly insignificant to any serious discourse on massive official corruption in the country. I must also quickly point out that the decidedly ill-fated decision by President Akufo-Addo to name Mr. Amidu to the aforementioned post, was actually the collective decision of a platoon of, in retrospect, some grossly misguided Ground Zero and Offshore advisers who had woefully overestimated the sincerity and the professional competence and integrity of the longtime lackey of the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings for the job.

In essence, to quite a remarkable extent, the Upper-East native from the Frafra district of Bolgatanga is the moral “giant” that he has undoubtedly become today vis-à-vis the official corruption-fighting front largely because of the gross strategic miscalculation of the grandson of the legendary and immortalized Nana Sir Ofori-Atta, I. That was how Mr. Ofori-Atta came to almost completely lose his professional and moral credibility as both Finance Minister and a key and an indispensable player of the Akufo-Addo cabinet and government, if Mr. Pratt really wants to know. To be certain, matters were also not the least bit mitigated or meliorated when instead of coming up with a progressive National Economic Recovery Program (NERP), in the inevitable wake of the China-incubated and disseminated COVID-19 Global Pandemic, and the equally socioeconomically deleterious Russian War on The Ukraine, a decidedly professionally and intellectually exhausted Mr. Ofori-Atta, rather lamely and parasitically cobbled up what became known as the Electronic Transactional Levy or E-Levy, as a formidable solution to a problem that required a much more effective, reliable and comprehensive NERP.

This is also the primary reason why promptly relieving Mr. Ofori-Atta of his clearly oversized portfolio, even while the Achimota-educated Finance Minister led Ghana in our latest fiscally managerial debt-servicing negotiation or renegotiation with the twin Bretton-Woods establishments of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The World Bank (IBRD) is not apt to negatively impact the country's already precarious economic situation. To be certain, it would actually offer Nana Akufo-Addo a prime opportunity to promptly replace a decidedly effete and “seismically listing” Mr. Ofori-Atta with a far more fiscally astute and competent ministerial replacement. Nana Akufo-Addo needs to give this matter some serious consideration and thought and promptly effect the necessary and direly needed changes not only within the Finance Ministry, but also within the entirety of his government.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

November 13, 2022

E-mail: [email protected]