The Co-Chair of the Citizen Movement Against Corruption has pushed for further investigations to unravel circumstances under which dismissed Public Procurement Authority (PPA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Adjenim Boateng Adjei, allegedly withdrew all funds from his frozen bank accounts.

Edem Senanu says so far as AB Adjei’s legitimate income stream did not support the unexplained wealth in his account, the state must probe the alleged withdrawal of funds to determine whether the money he took is for the country.

In an interview with JoyNews on Wednesday, he blamed state actors for negligence, especially when the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) revealed the former PPA Boss could not provide any justification for his wealth.

“Once there was the intention that these sums should be held on to because CHRAJ had indicated that he was not able to provide a justification for these amounts that got into his account; in other words, once you could not show that your income streams allowed you to have this as legitimately acquired sums of money, the state was supposed to have this money kept.

“…once the prosecution is done and we can prove that he was not entitled to it, then it’s money for the state,” Mr Senanu explained.

Background

It has emerged the dismissed PPA CEO has allegedly withdrawn all funds from his frozen bank accounts.

This flies in the face of a court order not to release cash from the account to Mr. Adjenim Boateng Adjei.

Investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni, whose investigative piece exposed Mr. Adjei’s underhand dealings, told JoyNews that he has received information about this new development.

Speaking on the Midday News on Wednesday, he explained that the accounts which were frozen during the investigation by the then Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, were for a period upon which it needed the court’s justification.

“When Martin Amidu froze the accounts, it was for a period, and he had to go back to the court to justify why the accounts should remain frozen. In the process, he resigned and left, and it took some time for his successor to take office,” he said.

Mr Awuni noted that during the period when the new Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, had to take over, the dismissed PPA boss went through his lawyers to get a court to lift the freezing order and withdraw all monies from his frozen accounts.

According to him, Mr Adjei currently has no pesewa in those accounts, which were frozen when they contained about ¢41.5 million.

“In the intervening period, we are told AB Adjei went through his lawyers and got the court to lift his frozen order; after that, even before Kissi Agyebeng took office, he took away all the funds that were deposited in his account.

“If you look at the statement Martin Amidu released on the work he had done with the Auditor-General, his accounts had huge deposits totalling about ¢41.5 million within the two and half years he was in office. The information we are getting is that not a pesewa is left in those accounts,” he added.

The Special Prosecutor has already slapped him with various charges, including using public office for profit and directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of procurement contracts contrary to law.

A statement issued by the Office of the Special Prosecutor on Wednesday to announce these charges noted that the brother-in-law of Adjenim Boateng, Francis Kwaku Arhin, has also been charged with one count of using public office for profit.