Adjenim Boateng Adjei, the ousted CEO of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), has spoken out about the millions of dollars that were placed into his bank accounts over the two and a half years he held office.
The data being discussed, according to his attorneys, "is just a complete turnover of inflows with matching outflows."
Manasseh Azure Awuni, Editor-in-Chief of The Fourth Estate, busted A.B. Adjei in the "Contracts for Sale" probe in August 2019. It was discovered that Talent Discovery Limited, a business he co-owned with his brother-in-law, had obtained restricted bidding government contracts and sold them to other businesses and people without the consent of the state authorities that had awarded them.
He was placed on administrative leave by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who also referred the case to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) for additional inquiry.
After the CHRAJ investigations found A.B. Adjei guilty of conflict of interest, excessive wealth, and violations of the procurement legislation, the president fired him in 2020.
The CHRAJ recommended Mr. Adjei be fired and barred for ten years from holding public office. He unsuccessfully challenged the prohibition to the Supreme Court.
The Special Prosecutor filed 18 counts of corruption-related procurement-related charges against Mr. Adjei and his brother-in-law, Francis Kwaku Arhin, in 2022.
The entire cash transferred into Mr. Adjei's accounts since he took office in 2017 was GHc14.8 million, according to information provided by CHRAJ.
According to the CHRAJ report, "We find the Respondent's [Mr. Adjei's] reply entirely unacceptable and that he could not explain the source of the significant amounts of extra money that went through his bank accounts between March 2017 and August 2019 (unexplained wealth).
Martin ABK Amidu, the special prosecutor at the time, praised CHRAJ for its report in a news release.
The Auditor-General and this Office thoroughly examined the bank statements from Mr. Adjei's three bank accounts, but for some reason, the CHRAJ report understates the amounts provided by them, according to Mr. Amidu.
The Special Prosecutor revealed that between 2017 and August 19, 2019, Mr. Adjei had deposits of EUR 54,500, USD 4,467,655, and CFA 15,691,559.30 made into his account.
Prior to taking office, the amounts placed into Mr. Adjei's accounts, according to CHRAJ and the Special Prosecutor at the time, were negligible in comparison to what was transferred into his account while he was in government.
According to the CHRAJ Report, "the Respondent [Mr. Adjei] opened a USD account at the Stanbic Bank on April 3, 2017, following his appointment as CEO of PPA,"
A.B. Adjei's attorneys, Oriental Law Consult, responded to The Fourth Estate, who broke the news, outlining how the millions of cedis entered his account.
The magazine allegedly tried to give the false impression that our client had millions of cedis in his personal accounts.
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