Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has vowed to take legal action against Databank, a company owned by Ghana’s Finance Minister Kenneth Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta, after President Akufo-Addo leaves office.
Kpebu is accusing Ofori-Atta, who is a cousin to the president, of advising the government on loans that benefit his own company, calling it a clear conflict of interest and an act of corruption, and has thus warned that he will initiate legal action to ensure the retrieval of such monies by the state.
“Less than 20 months or thereabout, President Akufo-Addo will be going with Ofori-Atta. They’re going to be out of government, then we’ll go to court. They will vomit it. We’ll take this money back. The money Databank made from the bonds, we’ll take ITback. Not here in Ghana. Are we fools?
“You come and promise that you’re the philosopher king, incorruptible, “I’m not corrupt” then we vote for you and then clearly, so blazingly, very nauseating, broad daylight then you put Databank there and they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars from our bonds,” he lamented on the Saturday, April 29, 2023, edition of KeyPoint on TV3.
He also criticized the Akufo-Addo government for causing hardship for Ghanaians while enriching themselves and called for the NPP to be voted out of government.
“Today our people are dying; today people can’t buy drugs; today people are starving; today people can’t pay rent; and you have become richer. We’ll take that money back as long as we live,” he added.
Ghana is currently going through severe economic hardship, which has had a serious impact on the cost of living for its citizens.
The government is seeking to remedy the situation through a $3 billion International Monetary Fund facility.
However, critics of the finance minister say the minister and, in extension, the government bear responsibility for the economic challenges arising fromA what they say is reckless borrowing since assuming office.