Ghana: Deputy Finance Minister Sacked Over Bribery

By Maxwell Nkansah The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, has fired Charles Adu Boahen, Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, following an investigative report that caught him on camera proposing to an undercover journalist posing as a businessman bribing the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, with $200,000 to get his backing to establish his business and for accepting bribes. The President canceled Adu Boahen's appointment with immediate effect in a statement signed by Eugene Arhin, Director of Communication, and dated November 14, 2022. According to the statement, the President has also submitted the case to the Office of the Special Prosecutor for further investigation. According to the statement, the president made the decision after learning about the news item printed in the Crusading Guide newspaper. According to the report, Adu Boahen was recorded telling an undercover businessman in the United Arab Emirates that Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia "needs only a $200,000 token as an appearance fee and some positions by an investor for the Vice President's siblings to get his backing and influence in establishing a business in Ghana." According to the story, he received an unspecified sum of money from the alleged businessman. Recent requests for the expulsion of Adu Boahen and the formal Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, have been made in response to poor management of the Ghanaian economy, which has resulted in high debt, rampant inflation, a devaluing cedi, and a high cost of living. The governmental debt exceeds 80% of GDP, with inflation exceeding 40%. Tiger Eye, an investigative journalism outfit run by Anas Aremeyaw Anas, will launch an undercover video investigation tonight. The fired Minister is the son of late historian, scholar, and politician Prof. Albert Adu Boahen.  Prof. Adu Boahen, who died on May 24, 2006, was the first Ghanaian to get a PhD in African history from the School of Oriental and African Studies. In the 1992 general elections, he was the presidential candidate of the governing New Patriotic Party. "My attention has been drawn to a video by Anas Aremeyaw Anas (as posted on his social media handle) showing the Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Charles Adu Boahen, apparently using my name, inter alia, to peddle influence and collect money from supposed investors," the Vice President said in a Facebook post on his page. If what the minister is claimed to have stated is correctly caught on the video, his position as a minister of state is untenable.  He should be fired immediately and probed.