Former PPA boss to appear in court on May 25 to answer to corruption charges
Former Chief Executive officer of the Public Procurement Authority, Adjenim Boateng Adjei has been charged with corruption offences by the Special Prosecutor in the “contracts for sale scandal”.
Mr Adjei has been slapped with eight counts of using public office for-profit and nine counts of directly and indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract.
He was charged with his brother-in-law, Francis Kwaku Arhin, who is also facing a charge of using public office for profit.
They are scheduled to appear before a high court on May 25, 2022.
A culmination of a detailed investigative work done by journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni led to these charges.
Per the probe conducted, a company is known as Talent Discovery Limited (TDL), owned by Mr Adjei, was getting government contracts through restricted tendering and selling those contracts to others for profit.
The said contracts were public works contracts awarded by the Ministry of Works and Housing, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Special Development Initiatives, Ministry of Inner-City & Zongo Development and the Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority.
According to the facts of the case available, Mr Adjei once altered the decision of the PPA Board in favour of Talent Discovery Limited.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor also investigated the corruption concerns that came up, while the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice looked into the conflict of interest aspects of the case.
After investigating Mr Adjei, CHRAJ found him guilty of conflict of interest, saying the money accrued in his accounts since assuming office in 2017 stood at GHS14.8 million from his four dollar and euro accounts held by two banks.
CHRAJ also added that Mr Adjei could not satisfactorily explain the source of the large volumes of excess wealth that passed through his bank accounts between March 2017 and August 2019.
The Special Prosecutor also noted that Mr Adjei “amassed fantastic funds in his bank accounts within a very short time”.
“The First and Second Accused perversely benefited pecuniarily through the use of public office for-profit and influencing the public procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage.”
