Investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, and his Tiger Eye P.I. targeted the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, in 2018, as part of the exposé that was released last Monday but failed to entrap him.
Details emerging from the premiered documentary of Anas Aremeyaw Anas titled ‘Galamsey Economy’ on 14 November 2022 at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC), confirm that beyond the then Deputy Minister for Finance, Charles Adu Boahen, the main objective of the investigation was to entrap the substantive Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
This was just over a year of the New Patriotic Party taking over from the National Democratic Congress in office.
It has also emerged that Anas Aremeyaw Anas used a civil servant at the Ministry of Finance, who was then a Senior Economics Officer, to get, first to the Deputy Minister and it was the same civil servant who introduced the private legal practitioner to the fake bankers from Al Baraka Islamic Bank, Bahrain, and later on facilitated Ken Ofori-Atta’s meeting which failed to snare the minister.
Charles Adu Boahen on 8 February 2018 in Dubai is said to have taken his time, over an hour, explaining the banking sector to a group he believed were interested in investing half a billion dollars in Ghana to set up a bank.
Our checks indicate that he did not ask to be given money after the meeting in a hotel suite, but was offered what he was meant to believe was “shopping money.”
According to reliable sources, aided by their go-to person, one civil servant, Solomon Amponsah, who works at the External Resource Mobilization and Economic Relation Division of the Ministry of Finance as a Principal Economics Officer, the investigators arranged to secure a meeting with Ken Ofori-Atta after months of trying.
They succeeded in landing a stopover meeting between them and Ken Ofori-Atta in Dubai on 8 April 2018, while he and his PA were enroute to Japan via the United Arab Emirates.
Mr Ofori-Atta was informed that the said meeting was going to be with the Chairman of Al Baraka Islamic Bank of Bahrain, whose interest was to invest $500m to set up an “ethical” bank in Ghana.
The meeting, per our checks, which had Mr Solomon Amponsah, and a Ghanaian lawyer present, lasted some five minutes.
Ken Ofori-Atta, it is reported, left very irked because he was offered a “gift”, which he refused to accept, and walked out with his PA who was also offered a “gift” that was similarly rejected.
This encounter with the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, was not part of the Tiger Eye P.I. investigation piece premiered at the AICC on 14 and 15 November 2022.
It is unclear whether or not it will feature in future releases by Anas Aremeyaw Anas as the trap failed to snare its intended victim.
However, the documentary that was shown Monday still portrayed Ken Ofori-Atta and Charles Adu Boahen both in a bad light alleging conflict of interest because of the normal day-to-day operations of the financial companies they both set up separately years before they took political office, the Databank Group and Black Star Brokerage, respectively.
