Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga Central Isaac Adongo has called on President Nana Akufo-Addo to sack the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, for causing financial loss to the country through his role in the Agyapa Mineral Royalties agreement.
Mr Adongo, a member of Parliament’s Finance Committee explained that he ought to be sacked for engaging in bid rigging as revealed by the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, who conducted a risk assessment of corruption on the deal.
Mr Adongo noted that the Finance Minister, said to have rigged the bid for the transaction advisor, has to be relieved of post because the transaction advisor has already been paid his fees. Given that the President has asked that the agreement be resubmitted to Parliament, he contends that the Minister willfully caused financial loss to the state.
” [The Finance Minister has to be sacked] because he has engaged in activities that Martin Amidu describes as bid rigging… The independent transaction advisor has already received money and Martin Amidu describes that agreement, the mandate agreement, as being null and void because it is in violation of the Public Financial Management Act,” he argued on Joy News’s PM Expess Tuesday, November 4, 2020.
For him, the fact that the transaction advisor has already been paid and the process of selecting it has now been found to be null and void means the Minister has willfully caused financial loss to the state.
“So you have already paid money in relation to what has already being described as null and void. Ab initio, you have willfully caused financial loss to the state,” he stressed.
Meanwhile the MP for New Juabeng South Dr Mark Assibey Yeboah has said that Mr Adongo’s call for the dismissal of the Finance Minister is untenable, stressing that he has no such power to pronounce that someone has willfully caused financial loss to state.
In fact, he described the whole report by Mr Amidu on the risk of corruption of the Agyapa Mineral Royalties agreement as sloppy.
