A senior official of Ghana's main opposition party has asked prosecutors to negotiate a plea bargain in a multi-million-cedi bank fraud case, court filings showed on Thursday, a shift for a man who until now has fought every charge against him and whose legal troubles have become a test of the government's anti-corruption drive.

Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, the Ashanti regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and a wealthy businessman known across Ghana simply as Chairman Wontumi, is fighting three separate criminal cases at the High Court in Accra. Two concern alleged illegal mining. The third, filed in May 2026, accuses him of defrauding the state-owned Ghana Export-Import Bank.

He is mounting this legal defence while running for the NPP's national chairmanship, the party's top organisational post, in internal elections meant to rebuild the party after its 2024 defeat. He declared his bid in February, unveiled a campaign team in May, and has said the cases will not derail his ambition. The contest, the trials and the plea talks are now unfolding at once.

In a notice filed on Thursday and signed by Deputy Attorney-General Justice Srem-Sai, the prosecution told the court that Wontumi's lawyer, Andy Appiah-Kubi, had written on June 5 asking to open plea discussions in the EXIM Bank case. The request was lodged under Section 162C(3) of the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, the law that governs plea bargaining in Ghana.

The move is notable because Attorney-General Dominic Ayine spent much of last year publicly refusing to cut deals in Wontumi's mining cases, and because it comes just weeks before a judge is due to rule on whether the first of those cases ends in conviction or acquittal.

A reversal, of sorts

For Ayine, the plea request lands close to the position he staked out in October 2025, when he told the public at government accountability series that offers had been made in the Wontumi matter and that he had turned all of them down.

"Offers have been made, and I have turned all of them down," he said at the time. He told anyone who wanted a deal to say so in open court rather than in private with his office. "If you want a plea deal, announce your intention to the judge. That is now my strategy."

He has also rejected a reported 38 million cedi plea offer linked to Wontumi's camp, according to a legal analyst cited by Ghanaian media, a sum prosecutors viewed as an attempt to refund money and avoid a full criminal trial. Ayine has applied the same logic elsewhere, throwing out a similar proposal in a separate scandal at the National Service Scheme.

Wontumi's lawyers spent months denying any deal was on the table. In October last year, Appiah-Kubi called the talk premature, saying the case had not reached a stage where plea discussions made sense. By writing to the attorney-general this month, the defence has now done exactly what Ayine said he wanted: brought the request into the formal, court-supervised process rather than a back room.

Whether Ayine accepts anything remains unknown. The filing discloses that talks have begun. It does not commit the state to terms.

The bank case

The EXIM Bank charge sheet, dated May 15, names Wontumi as first accused alongside Wontumi Farms Limited and Thomas Antwi-Boasiako, who prosecutors say is on the run. The three face four counts: defrauding by false pretences, uttering a forged document, money laundering, and intentionally causing financial loss to a public body. Wontumi pleaded not guilty on May 18.

According to the prosecution, Wontumi Farms applied in 2018 for a facility of about 19 million cedis to set up a large farming venture, telling the bank it had secured roughly 100,000 acres of land. Investigators say it had not. The bank approved GHS18.7 million cedis and disbursed about GHS14.3 million, but prosecutors allege no land was bought, no crops were planted, no equipment was purchased and no workers were hired.

The state says Wontumi then altered a pro-forma invoice into a fake receipt to draw down a further 4 million cedis, and that money was diverted to personal use. With interest and other liabilities, prosecutors put the loss to the bank at more than GHS30 million.

If convicted, Wontumi faces serious time. Under Ghana's Criminal Offences Act, defrauding by false pretences is a second-degree felony carrying up to 25 years, forgery up to 10 years and money laundering between 10 and 20 years.

The case is part of "Operation Recover All Loot," the administration's campaign to claw back allegedly stolen public funds, an effort supporters cast as overdue accountability and critics dismiss as a hunt for political scalps.

The mining cases

The two older cases revolve around Akonta Mining, a company Wontumi controls.

In the first, he, the company and its director Kwame Antwi face six counts tied to a concession at Samreboi in the Western Region: three of assigning mineral rights without ministerial approval and three of facilitating unlicensed mining, under the Minerals and Mining Act. He pleaded not guilty and was granted bail of 15 million cedis.

The defence closed its case on June 3. The judge has asked both sides to file written addresses by June 17 and set July 3 for judgment. Wontumi's lawyers have argued the prosecution failed to make its case, pointing to video footage the defence says shows illegal mining on the concession carried on by others, without the accused's direction.

In the second, Wontumi and four others were charged with seven counts over mining in the Tano Nimri Forest Reserve, including mining without a licence and abetting the felling of trees and the erection of buildings in a forest reserve. The state dropped its case against one accused, Akonta's general manager Edward Akuoko, after he agreed to testify for the prosecution. Bail in that case was set at 10 million cedis.

Politics and money

The prosecutions have hardened along party lines. The NPP's deputy general secretary, Haruna Mohammed, has argued that if anything went wrong with the EXIM loan the fault lies with the bank, not the borrower, and accused Ayine of trying to criminalise opponents before the courts have ruled. "The Ashanti regional chairman did not pick a cutlass to go to the bank to pick the loan," he said.

Ayine, for his part, insists he is acting without political instruction. "I'm under no pressure from any quarters to cut deals," he said in October, adding that neither the president nor the chief of staff had leaned on him.

Wontumi has refused to let the cases slow his run for the party's top job. On June 8 he revealed on Asempa FM's Ekosiisen show that the court battles would not stop his chairmanship ambition, casting his years of legal and political fights as preparation for leadership. "Now you have a new Wontumi," he said, pledging to sacrifice everything for an NPP win in 2028. He has said he would be the first Ashanti regional chairman to rise to the national chairmanship.

The cases have also squeezed Wontumi financially. The High Court refused to unfreeze his corporate and personal accounts, leaving a reported about GHS50 million in cash, treasury bills and insurance funds locked up. His bail terms require him to surrender his passport, stay on a stop list at the country's borders and report regularly to investigators.

What happens next

The EXIM Bank case returns to court on June 18 for a case management conference, now shadowed by the plea talks disclosed on Thursday. The Samreboi mining verdict is due on July 3. Between those two dates, much of Wontumi's immediate future, and a measure of the government's anti-graft credibility, will be settled.