The ace investigative journalist, Manasseh Azuri Awuni, is up in arms with Sammy Darko, a puppet of Kissi Agyabeng at the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP). Since Manasseh's investigative report was published, the SML deal has been fingered for lots of rot and found to have been orchestrated by the fugitive and former finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta, who's on the run. The attitude of the OSP is quite revealing in providing cover for the fugitive. This has eroded public trust of the office, and many are calling for not only the removal of Kissi Agyabeng and his allies but also the scrapping of the office because it has not lived up to its expected usefulness.
The back and forth seems not to be ending soon with Manasseh against the OSP. The former have dropped many superior particulars meant to further indict the OSP's shambolic and inept investigative report that contravenes most of the findings by Manasseh.
The latest in the series says that the total sum of the consolidated SML contract was a little over $500 million. It stipulated that by the time the OSP completed its report, two of the contracts had been terminated. Thus, the External Price Verification and Transaction Audit contracts were terminated in 2024 after the KPMG Report. The Upstream and Minerals sector contracts were also suspended in 2023 due to Manasseh's aired story.
Interestingly, the only contract that was active at the time the OSP finished its report was the Downstream Petroleum Sector contract, which had been renegotiated to $1.6 million a month since our investigation and the subsequent KPMG audit. The contract had already run for two out of the five years by the time the OSP finished its work.
However, the OSP claimed that it had saved Ghana $2.7 billion after President Mahama cancelled the SML contract. Even with the $500 million, the OSP came in when part of the deal was already cancelled and suspended, so where did the office get its $2.7 billion from? The OSP is fumbling herein, and this goes to buttress the public allegations of Kissi Agyabeng's involvement in the whole narrative.
When Manasseh challenged Kissi Agyebeng on the phone, he claimed that the $2.7 billion was found in the PPA approval letter. The first time he challenged this false claim was when Sammy Darko, without any provocation, claimed that Manasseh's investigation had unearthed $100 million, but the OSP's probe unearthed $2.7 billion.
In fact, Manasseh had a copy of the PPA approval letter, which did not state anything close to the $2.7 billion. Mr Kissi Agyebeng also admitted that both Sammy Darko and the director who led the SML investigation agreed with Manasseh's position that the contract sum was over $500 million and not $2.7 billion.
After Sammy Darko publicly attacked Manasseh for stating the right figure, the former admitted on Newsfile yesterday that he agreed with the latter's figure, as Kissi Agyebeng had told him, but Kissi Agyebeng thought differently because of his criminal law interpretation.
The good news is that the OSP has now revised the figure from $2.7 billion to $514 million. On its Facebook wall, the OSP has stated GHc 5.7 billion, which is $514 million.
When Manasseh published the PPA letter and challenged the OSP to produce the so-called PPA letter it referenced, they claimed he, Manasseh, wanted to try the case in public. But this is the office that has engaged in the public trial of Mustapha Hamid and the NPA case before. What's different here?
It's stated that Manasseh long desired a successful prosecution, but the people must know the truth. Such bloated figures will make the OSP look good in the public's eyes, but such lies will crumble in court and destroy the case.
I don't even understand why the current government is still keeping Kissi Agyabeng and allies in office to continue to drain the public purse. The meekness of the government over public outcries such as the stinky SML deal and the shenanigans continuously being displayed by the OSP leave much to be desired.
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