Sacked PPA CEO Allegedly Clears All Cash In His “Frozen” Bank Accounts
According to information obtained by The Fourth Estate, Adjenim Boateng Adjei, the fired chief executive officer of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), has withdrawn all funds from his bank accounts, which were frozen when investigations into his conduct began.
According to our information, he emptied his bank accounts of all funds before Kissi Agyebeng, the current Special Prosecutor, took office.
The massive quantity of “unexplained” money found in Mr. Adjei’s bank accounts while he was in government was one of the major findings in the “Contracts for Sale” controversy that led to his expulsion.
Mr. Adjei was in office for two and a half years, during which time he received over GHc41 million cedis in cash into his Cedi, Dollar, and Euro accounts.
President Akufo-Addo suspended AB Adjei in August 2019 as a result of Manasseh Azure Awuni’s investigative documentary “Contracts for Sale.”
Following his employment as the PPA’s CEO, Mr. Adjei founded Talent Discovery Limited with his brother-in-law, according to the probe.
The restrictive tendering technique helped this company win a lot of government contracts.
Mr. Adjei was a member of the PPA board, which approved the contracts.
The investigations discovered that Talent Discovery Limited could not carry out the contracts.
It subsequently sold the contracts to people and companies without the granting entities’ knowledge or approval.
In addition to the suspension, the president has reported Mr. Adjei’s actions to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
The Ghana Integrity Initiative, Ghana’s chapter of Transparency International, has asked CHRAJ to investigate Mr. Adjei and the PPA board of directors for their involvement in the issue.
The president’s appeal was investigated by CHRAJ, which revealed its findings in 2020.
Mr. Adjei was found guilty of conflict of interest and other charges.
Mr. Adjei was barred from holding public office for ten years by CHRAJ.
He appealed the ban to the Supreme Court but was unsuccessful.
Mr. Adjei’s total account balance after taking office in 2017 was GHc14.8 million, according to the CHRAJ.
“We found the Respondent’s [Mr. Adjei’s] reply was utterly unsatisfactory, and he could not explain the source of the enormous amounts of extra wealth that went through his bank accounts between March 2017 and August 2019 (unexplained wealth),” according to the CHRAJ report.
Martin ABK Amidu, the Special Prosecutor at the time, issued a press statement praising CHRAJ’s efforts.
“The only problem with the CHRAJ report is that for some reason it understates the amounts disclosed by the bank statements from the three bank accounts of Mr. Adjei exhaustively reviewed by the Auditor-General and this Office,” Mr. Amidu said.
