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IMANI-Africa President Franklin Cudjoe believes that it will be in the best interest of the country that Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta and his deputy, Charles Adu Boahen, excuse themselves from Agyapa’s controversial royalty deal.
He says that while the current fallout from the deal is shameful given the poor work done by Parliament’s Finance Committee, calls for the resignation or removal of the Finance Minister on the matter are also not a step in the right direction.
Speaking on Citi TV’s Big Issue on Saturday, Mr. Cudjoe said there is room to correct mistakes in the deal if the two officials decide not to interfere with the process and other acts of conflict of interest.
“So I think from the beginning, the finance committee did a completely poor job. Either they decided to get sleepy at work or they decided not to pay attention to basic assessment math. We could have avoided this embarrassment. We have gotten this deal wrong and I think that the call to the Minister of Finance is not necessarily appropriate. I’d rather have him tother with Charles Adu Boahen recuse himself from the deal. The president has enough other competent men to put together the deal and can then be contacted at later stages after broadly consultative stages.
An analysis of the transaction by special counsel Martin Amidu, in a 64-page report, raised red flags on the deal and attacked the finance minister and other officials who contributed to the processes that led to Parliament’s approval.
He insisted that several processes were mocked before parliamentary approval.
But Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta and other government officials rejected the Special Prosecutor’s claims.
Mr. Cudjoe, however, believes that more harm than good has been caused due to the lack of a proper evaluation of the transaction.
“I think the Finance Committee did a poor quality job. Mark Assibey Yeboah and his people did not serve the country well at all. And I am surprised that he is attacking the special counsel because they do not do the basic evaluation correctly. The moment no one gave you an assessment, series, or analysis of the net present value of the Agyapa deal, then you begin to question the entire basis for arriving at the US $ 1 billion assessment figure. ”
Don’t trivialize the corruption risk assessment of the Agyapa deal – Martin Amidu
Meanwhile, Special Counsel Martin Amidu says his corruption risk assessment report on the Agyapa Royalty Agreement should be taken seriously and not trivialized.
He issued the statement on the reverse of separate statements issued by the Jubilee House and the Ministry of Finance in reaction to his Office’s corruption risk assessment report.
“The Office of the Special Prosecutor was either seriously intended to prevent and combat corruption or was only intended to be a masterpiece to be trivialized. The sixty-four (64) page report must be taken seriously to make corruption a very high-risk business in Ghana, ”he added in the statement.
— citinewsroom
