Between June 2020 and October 2020, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta swindled GHC 52 billion from various tax revenues into unknown accounts, which has swelled to a startling GHC 63 billion in line with the cedi devaluation.
The Finance Ministry has yet to respond to a request from the then-Deputy Auditor General, George Swanzy Winful, for the Finance Minister to explain where the money went.
“It’s been almost a year, and the BoG, Finance Ministry, and GCB have never revealed information of how the money was transferred and under whose command,” stated Loud Silence Media, a US-based media outlet controlled by Kevin Taylor, the controversial US-based investigative journalist.
Kevin Taylor blew the lid off the strange capital flight from the government’s account at the Ghana Commercial Bank in the year 2020. (GCB).
Whatsup News has obtained a copy of George Winful’s inquisition delivered to Ken Ofori-Atta.
George Winful wrote to the GCB on October 5, 2020, alleging that funds meant for the Bank of Ghana had been transferred into unknown accounts other than the Bank of Ghana (BoG) through transit accounts in some commercial banks, including the state-owned Ghana Commercial Bank, a high crime under Regulation 12 of the Financial Administration Regulation (FAR), 2004.
A letter from the Audit Service, obviously suspected a foul play with the then Deputy Auditor-General in 2020 threatening to surcharge all transit banks who did not remit the funds directly to the BoG as required by the law.
“In accordance with Article 187 of the 1992 Constitution, we intend surcharging any participating commercial bank who defaults in transferring tax receipts collected from the various transit accounts into the respective BoG Holding accounts,” the letter said.
A total of 37,212 transactions meant to run through those transit accounts of the commercial banks straight to the BoG were first diverted to a secret account.
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Later, allegations would emerge that the ‘elsewhere’ that Ofori-Atta had instructed the money to be forwarded to was Databank, which is the Finance Minister’s private investment brokerage firm.
As the story began to dominate headlines in 2020, the Audit Service released a statement confirming that it had carried out the special audit and that there had been some missing links that it was pursuing.
However, according to the Service, the letter Kevin Taylor had intercepted was just one of many that it had written to several commercial banks including the GCB which host accounts for government.
It also said that the special audit had been requested by Mr. Ofori-Atta and that the request included a confirmation of the transfer of receipts from the various transit accounts maintained by commercial banks into the various BoG holding accounts from 2015.
“Provide assurance that all CCVRs of Customs dating back from 2015 to date have been duly credited to the authorized bank accounts within the specified periods and to investigate and confirm that all transfers and debits in all government accounts were duly approved by the Controller and Accountant-General and the Ministry of Finance from 2015.”
But as Kevin Taylor points out, it has been a whole year now and the Audit Service has not given any update on whether the whole amount had been traced or not.
