Anti-corruption crusader Martin Amidu has asserted that the botched Agyapa Royalties Limited Agreement was conceived and being implemented to benefit only a few persons from one ethnic group within the New Patriotic Party and government.
Mr. Amidu who recently resigned from his position as Ghana’s first Special Prosecutor has been detailing findings, he made following an anti-corruption risk assessment he conducted on the agreement, disclosing that the deal contained corruption offences and illegalities that were perpetrated by a group of persons in government.
“I can now say as a citizen of Ghana on the basis of the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions report that the transaction was suspiciously conceived by the Ministry of Finance and the Presidency and implemented to serve only a few persons within even the New Patriotic Party. Throughout the painstaking examination, analysis and anti-corruption assessment of the Agyapa Royalties Transaction Documents in my capacity as the Special Prosecutor, I could not find “a Dombo”, “a Busia” or “the Golden Stool of the Ashanti Kingdom “, or anybody from the Volta Region from the New Patriotic Party on the Minerals Income Investment Board,” he wrote.
He further stated that the deal in its nature would have deprived Ghanaians of their rights to enjoy the “national patrimony of its extractive resources particularly when the Constitutional trustee personified by the President of Ghana, for the time being, seeks to deprive the Chiefs and people who are the beneficiaries from having any say in the management of such an important national extractive patrimony”.
Mr. Amidu noted that a very few members of the President’s government as distinct from the NPP would have benefited in perpetuity from the controversial transaction.
The Agyapa Mineral Royalties Agreement which was subsequently suspended has been a subject of controversies since the majority side of parliament approved the deal amidst protest from the minority side of the house.
The agreement between government of Ghana and Agyapa Royalties Limited which acts as a Special Purpose Vehicle is to enable Ghana secure US$ 1 billion to finance large infrastructural projects.
