I visited a sick Amidu but not to influence him – Ken Ofori-Atta

The Minister designate for Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta has denied reports he attempted to influence the works of former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu when he was conducting the Corruption Risk Assessment on the Agyapa Royalty transaction

Ofori-Atta said it was true he personally visited the home of Martin Amidu but the reason was not to influence but to visit a friend who was under the weather.

“As I have mentioned before, I’ve known the former Special Prosecutor for a while now, and it was the first time I was going to his house. So I visited him at home. I had gone to his office on a Friday, and it was indicated to me that he was not feeling well, and he wasn’t in the office.

“So on Saturday, I went to visit him and to provide him with some pieces of information he said he wasn’t getting from us [the Ministry of Finance]. But I think we all know Mr. Amidu is a very independent person, and so I didn’t visit him to attempt to change his view on his investigations” Mr. Ofori-Atta told the Appointment’s Committee of Parliament last Friday.

It will be recalled that Amidu, days after his resignation in an interview with Citi FM, said: “The fact that you are in government doesn’t mean that when you are dissatisfied about a report, you go after the person or the fellow. The Minister of Finance has been my friend for years; why will I go for him? When I was writing the report, didn’t he come to this house? Was he not here on 21 October? What did I tell him? Why is he now churning our information about me and targets and all that? Should I come out? Let’s stop it and I say let’s stop it before we wash dirty linen in public.”

Unfair Treatment

In an earlier response, Ofori-Atta said Martin Amidu did Ghana a great disservice for releasing his report on the Agyapa Royalties agreement without including in it a response from the Finance Ministry.

“Accepting and acknowledging a report in which your citizens were not able to give their views on is not something we should encourage. We did not break any rule as far as the Agyapa deal is concerned.

“For such a report to be put out in the public without myself having a chance to discuss it, I think it’s a disservice to our democracy and we all as a people should be careful about such things.”

Agyapa lawful

Mr. Ofori-Atta also stated that it was necessary to note that the Agyapa agreement was backed by an Act of Parliament and as such, the Finance Ministry did not deviate from any of the dictates of the Act.

“One thing we have to note is that on the basis of that transaction was an Act that was passed which was thoroughly debated and we did not deviate from any dictates of that Act,” he stated.

He said the speculative issues that were raised in the report would be worked on when the deal is re-submitted to Parliament as the President had directed.

“Re-submitting the deal will allow us to work those things out,” he added.