Ameyaw-Akumfi & Osonoba Detained: Fear & Panic Grip Former Appointees

The rising number of appointees of the Akufo-Addo led government being invited to investigative bodies for questioning has birthed an eerie  apprehension among their colleague former-appointees and an unsettling uncertainty on which of them would be the next to be invited for questioning, The New Publisher can report.

The said apprehensive appointees are reportedly contemplating both a legal and a political solution to the rising number of invitations.

The latest on the list of invitees is the 80-year old Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi who was detained at the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) yesterday Sunday February 24, over the $3 billion Accra Sky Train project, announced in 2017 by President Nana Akufo-Addo but never saw the light of day.

Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, a former Minister for Education, was Board Chairman of the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), the government institution alleged to have paid an amount of $2 million to Africa Investor Holdings Limited, for the Accra Sky Train Project without Parliamentary approval and fully meeting the established protocols for public procurement procedures.

Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi’s detention at the NIB is suspected to have been to assist in investigations into the said payment of the $2 million and his alleged role.

As a press time Sunday night, lawyers for the detained Professor Ameyaw-Akumfi had not been able to get him bail and it was unclear whether or not the 80-year old former Minister would spend Sunday night in detention.

On same day the good-old-professor was grabbed into NIB custody,  another appointee of the former administration, Kwaku Ohene Djan alias ‘Osonoba’ a former Deputy Director in Charge of Operations at the National Service Authority (NSA) was also picked up by NIB officials and reports say he was detained.

The New Publisher’s deep throats whispered that Kwaku Ohene Djan’s arrest has to go with a vehicle suspected to belong to government and not necessarily about the alleged scandal that the past management of the NSA has been accused of.

On same day, an unnamed former official of the NSA who was said to have worked with the IT department was reportedly invited to the NIB and interrogated for some nine hours before his release.

These developments are happening at a time dust is yet to settle on a tussle between the 66-year-old former Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).

Indeed the OSP had publicly declared Ofori-Atta as a wanted person and a fugitive of justice but subsequent correspondents on when the wanted former Minister would show up for questioning weaned him off the fugitive tag.

In a move unrelated to the OSP, Mr. Ofori-Atta’s home had been raised by National Security Operatives while he was in a foreign hospital being prepared for surgery.

The OSP announced it had invited Ken Ofori-Atta for questioning over corruption and suspected corruption in relation to a list of cases including contractual arrangements between Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA)

Other reasons for which he is wanted are the termination of a distribution loss reduction and associated network improvement project contract between Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Beijing Technology (BXC) and procurement of contractors and materials and activities and payments in respect of the national cathedral project.

He is also being wanted for activities and payments in respect of a contract awarded by the Ministry of Health initially commenced by the ministry of special developments initiatives to service Ghana Auto Group Limited for purchases and after sales service and maintenance of 307 Mercedes Benz sprinter ambulances for the national ambulance service and payments out of and utilisatiion of the tax refund account of GRA.