Agyenim Boateng Adjei
Details have emerged about the bank accounts of former Chief Executive Officer of Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Agyenim Boateng Adjei, who has been banned from holding public office for the next 10 years.
A report by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), which has ordered Mr. Adjei to refund GH¢5,611,530,000 he illegally acquired when he opened a Dollar Account at the Stanbic Bank on April 3, 2017, after his appointment as CEO of PPA.
The report follows new findings into alleged corruption and conflict of interest allegations made against Mr. Adjei by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII). The report indicates that as of August 28, 2019, a total amount of US $516,225 had been credited to the account, and his debits stood at US $504,607.87.
The report also indicated that his Euro Account at the same bank also had €54,500.00 credited and €37,333 debited for the same period.
The CHRAJ report further revealed that Mr. Adjei’s Cedi Account at the Stanbic Bank, opened on January 21, 2017, had a total of GH¢3.83 million credited to it and GH¢3.81 million debited to the account between the date of his appointment as CEO in 2017 and August 29, 2019.
CHRAJ said records obtained from the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) on the bank accounts of Mr. Adjei “further show that his UMB USD Account had seen cash flow of over US$110,000 between December 2018 and March 2019 alone, whilst total cash deposits into his Cedi Account at UMB alone between August 2017 and August 2019 amounted to GH¢5,697,530.00.”
It continued that “In sum, between his two Ghana Cedi accounts at Stanbic and UMB, a total of over 9.5 million Ghana Cedis passed through Mr. Adjei’s hands for the two and half years he was in office, whilst a total of US$626,225 passed through his two USD accounts at Stanbic and UMB, and €54,500.00 passed through the Stanbic Euro account.
The report indicated that although Mr. Adjei is a director of over 19 companies, he himself claims that he did not receive director’s fees from any of those companies except Beachfront Stevedoring Company Limited.
Response
CHRAJ said it gave Mr. Adjei the opportunity to explain himself and he indicated he was not lying in wait for an appointment but had been working for 38 years and had acquired properties before his appointment as PPA boss, adding that he has a land worth US$3 million which he acquired 14, 15 years ago.
“So if I decided to do that and I get revenue coming in bits and I re-invest them so could I get other monies. This is not out of place, but because I didn’t have the opportunity to give more detailed account of what my accounts look like, look at the way the public would see,” he told CHRAJ.
But CHRAJ in its report noted that Mr. Adjei appeared to have misconceived the real issue as no one was questioning the magnitude of his wealth or what he was worth before he assumed public office in 2017.
Instead, CHRAJ said “the allegations are in respect of illicit enrichment after his appointment as CEO of PPA and unexplained wealth that passed through his foreign and Cedi accounts at Stanbic and UMB banks. Thus, his explanation that he had accumulated wealth prior to his appointment at PPA, does not provide any answers to the issue in question.”
CHRAJ adds that in the course of the investigation, it gave Mr. Adjei the opportunity to explain the sources of the numerous large cash deposits into his UMB Cedi account, and he wrote through his lawyer saying there was a meeting between himself and the commission on January 26, 2021, but denies the assertion that at the said meeting he informed investigators that monies deposited into his Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) Cedi account were from investments he made, among others.
But CHRAJ holds that Mr. Adjei once again misled himself and finds that he “enriched himself illegally and placed himself in contravention of Article 286 of the 1992 Constitution and his actions should be investigated, he should be sanctioned, and the illegal assets he acquired should be confiscated to the state.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak