While complaining about the complete depletion of public funds needed for social infrastructures, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has once more caught stuffing his personal fortunes by hijacking public funds and diverting them to his private property.
Recently, the Volta River Authority (VRA) was reportedly coerced by the Finance Minister to relocate three of its key departments to a private luxurious Tower owned by Enterprise Group, an insurance company owned by Ken Ofori-Atta.
The VRA staff used to be housed in an office complex owned by the state-owned Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) at the Heritage Towers in Accra.
WhatsUp News has been finding out that at the complex called “Advantage Place” where the rent is paid in US dollars.
It cost US$26 per square meter per month to stay in Enterprise Group’s Advantage Place.
A typical car parking space is about 12 square meters while a typical master bedroom is about 16 square meters. A whole department would probably take hundreds of square meters.
Ofori-Atta’s Enterprise Group had the Advantage Place built for it by S. Tetteh and Associates in 2017, after Ofori-Atta’s cousin, Akufo-Addo became President
News of the dubious movement from public property to the more expensive private property of the Finance Minister was broken by US-based Ghanaian journalist, Kevin Taylor.
On his Loud Silence Media broadcast platform, Mr. Taylor read the letter confirming the move after expressing frustration that at a time that the country’s finances are in a mess, the President’s cousin-the Finance Minister does appear to be applying the brakes on the sheer expanse of state capture that he has become infamous for.
“You would expect that at this time that our country is going through difficulties, the government would be frugal, but no; it is rather now that VRA has decided to relocate from a government property in which it could even afford to postpone rent payment, into a luxurious private one,” Kevin Taylor lamented.
The letter communicating Management’s decision to move the Real Estate and Security, Human Resource including HR Area Office and Audit Departments from Heritage Towers to Advantage Place is dated February 23rd, 2022, according to Kevin Taylor.
“This is to inform all staff that the three departments currently operating from the Heritage Towers, that is Real Estate and Security, Human Resource including HR Area Office and Audit will be relocated to Advantage Place Office complex,” it read.
“The relocation to the Advantage Place takes effect from May 1st, 2022.”
This incestuous involvement of Ofori-Atta’s Enterprise Group with his own government is not the first.
The same Enterprise Group had been hired as book-runners for the scandalous Franklin Templeton US$2.25billion bond that Ofori-Atta cooked in 2017 on the blind side of everybody, including then-Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo and Parliament.
Also, Ofori-Atta has another corrupt arrangement in which he has hired his other private company, Databank Financial Services, as a so-called bond market expert for his Ministry, the Ministry of Finance, so that anytime government borrows, Databank is paid service fees.
Source: Whatsupnewsghana