How Minister Facilitated ?500m Credit For Lover

..And story of ?9 million rent payment for NPP man’s wife


Somewhere last year, a phone call went from Mr. Thomas Broni, Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry to Mr. Abel Edusei, Chief Executive of the state-owned Ghana National Procurement Agency (GNPA). The call subsequently led to the approval of a credit facility of about ?500 million for the retail business of Ms. Martha Adwoa Nkrumah, mistress of the Deputy Minister and wife of Mr Tony Osei-Tutu, an NPP member.

Insiders at the GNPA were later to tell the Concord that the seemingly ordinary business practice between some ministers of state and the GNPA was abnormal. The credit facility, which allows Ms. Nkrumah to credit goods from the GNPA to the tune of what sources put at over ?500 million, had almost no real collateral or guarantee. GNPA sources say it was largely based on the goodwill of the words of Minister Broni, a man whose stay in ministerial office any day depends on the say-so of President John Agyekum Kufuor.

But although Mr. Abel Adusei, GNPA’s CEO, admitted in an interview early last month that it was the Minister who introduced and recommended Martha to him for business, he said he ensured that transactions between her and the GNPA stayed above board.

“It was purely a commercial transaction,” he said.

According to him, he did not violate any of the rules on the books to favour her and that it was not an irregularity that ministers of state recommend people to him for business. It was up to him to decide who qualified and who did not, he explained.

He said as a CEO bent on saving the wobbly national institution, he took enough precautionary measures before sealing business with Ms. Nkrumah in order not to expose GNPA to any loss.

Moreover, the lady had earlier applied to trade with the GNPA and the marketing department was dealing with her application, he said, adding that Ms Nkrumah’s business transaction with the GNPA had been exemplary, with GNPA over-billing her for goods delivered in November.

“We even owe her,” he said.

Concord however gathered that until the latter part of last year, not much guarantee existed to cover Martha’s business deals with the GNPA. That is, until national security officials sounded the CEO to stay off his friend’s mistress business deals, following the President’s directive to the head of the BNI to investigate the matter, sources say.

The issue of the GNPA business deal was part of both the first and second petitions to the presidency by the aggrieved husband of Ms. Nkrumah, Osei-Tutu. “…Sad still is the porous paper guarantee he [Broni] provided to cover for the goods supplied her …” he wrote.

Following Concord’s story last Monday, sources at the GNPA hinted that the credit facility might be higher than the stated ?500 million. Concord, however, could not independently confirm that before press time Saturday, as earlier enquiries at the GNPA Thursday afternoon had not yielded results.

The CEO and his board were in a meeting. The CEO could not also be reached before press time on the issue through Friday, though the Marketing Department had researched and provided him with the information to answer Concord’s queries following the request on Thursday. Rent
Not surprising, it was also the Deputy Minister, according to Ms. Victoria Baah, landlady of the residence rented to Ms. Martha Nkrumah -Osei-Tutu’s wife and Broni’s mistress- who negotiated with her for the two-bedroom self-contained house.

Her admission, made in mid-2002 and reinforced in a letter to Martha’s lawyers copied to the Deputy Minister barely a fortnight ago, contrast sharply with Hon. Broni’s assertion in last Tuesday’s Daily Guide that he did not know the residence he rented for Ms Nkrumah.

According to him, he did not even know the area the house is situated in. “After Hon., Broni, Martha and myself have agreed [on] the sum of ?9,000,000 as rent advance for the period we agreed on, he, Hon Broni, remitted the said amount in bits and pieces via Martha Nkrumah at various instances to me,” the landlady wrote in response to a letter from lawyers of Ms. Nkrumah on January 21, 2003.

Incidentally, neighbours in both the Caprice area, where the couple, Tony Osei-Tutu and Ms. Martha Nkrumah used to stay, as well as in New Town, where the minister rented the apartment for her, say the face of the 67-year-old Deputy Minister is a familiar one.

“I know the Honourable well. I often opened the gates for him. Sometimes, he parked at the front. He used to bring presents. The first week he brought sugar, the second week rice. ….”

According to the landlady, who used to be a friend of Martha and the husband and equally became a friend of Broni and his mistress, she fell out with them when she drew the Deputy Minister’s attention to the consequence of his action and the avoidable publicity that his action could generate.
“I cautioned them…. ”
By then, Ms. Baah’s admonitions were too late. Things had taken a good turn for the lovebirds. Ms. Nkrumah’s business at the Mallam Atta Market, a suburb of Accra, was blossoming, with the minister being considered for a full ministerial post – Forestry – by the President, Concord gathered.

Radio follow-ups

“We were never married” stated Ms. Nkrumah to this reporter in an interview last week Sunday. She repeated the same statement in the only phone interview she gave on radio that day on Radio Gold.

According to her, her estranged husband did not complete the full marital rites that allowed him to call her a wife, adding that the Deputy Minister did not compel her to leave her matrimonial home.

Her explanation was that she left the husband’s home because “he was dealing in drugs.”

But speaking to Joy FM in the only live studio interview he gave that day, the estranged husband, Tony Osei-Tutu questioned whether it was not criminal and an act of irresponsibility that Broni and his wife were only now telling the public of the kind of drug dealing criminal he was, without having caused his arrest in previous times.

He denied being a drug dealer and said his estranged wife’s allegations were desperate acts to excuse her relationship with the minister.

He described himself when prompted to do so as a businessman who is into anything that brings money, “except dealing in drugs; except snatching other people’s wives.”

“So far as I am concerned she is my common law wife” Osei-Tutu said of her relationship with Ms. Nkrumah, adding that he performed the marital rites with the necessary drinks, a ring and a bible despite claims by his estranged wife that these things were presented in the context of a “kokooko” (knocking rites).

“Who presents a bible and a ring for kokooko” was Osei-Tutu’s refrain.

But the most damning evidence against Broni was by Chief of Staff, Kwadwo Mpianin, who admitted on Peace FM that indeed following a confirmation of the affair between Broni and the wife of Osei-Tutu after national security agencies have investigated the case, Broni was advised to stay off the woman if he wanted to keep his ministerial post.

That interview eventually confirmed Concord’s story and disproved Broni’s assertion the following Tuesday in the Guide that he never had an affair with Ms. Nkrumah. It showed that long after Broni claimed to have stayed off the woman, he was still in touch, since the President’s directive was long after the BNI had completed their investigations I the latter part of last year.

In the Guide interview, Broni also contradicted Ms Nkrumah’s assertion that she was never married to Tony Osei Tutu. The report cited Broni as saying that Ms. Nkrumah told him that she was married, a departure from the woman’s own assertion that she was never married to her now estranged wife.