Chop Chop at EDIF (1)

CHOP CHOP AT EDIF (1) BOARD MEMBER CAUGHT PANTS DOWN DUPES STATE WITH GHOST COMPANY

Source: Daily Democrat (democratnews@yahoo.com)

Information available to the Daily Democrat has uncovered a fraudulent deal perfectly executed by a board member of the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF), Nana Yeboah Kodie Asare II, Chief of Bosomkyekye and known in private life as Benjamin Kwadjo Addae.

The information indicates that Nana Kodie Asare II and two others have fraudulently duped the state of over 2 billion old cedis.

According to documents available to the paper, the money was paid to a ghost company on the 4th of March, 2011, 12 clear days before the company was registered at the Registrar Generals Department on the 15th March, 2011.

The money, which was disbursed under the Export Development and Investment Fund recoverable facility, was intended for the cultivation of 100 acres of Kent and Keitt mango. Alliance Farm Limited, the ghost farm which Nana Kodie and his conspirators claimed was located in the Brong Ahafo Region is actually in the Ashanti Region and therefore did not form part of the beneficiary regions of the fund namely the Upper East, Upper West, Northern Region and the Brong Ahafo Region, which form the Savanna Zone of Ghana.

The Daily Democrat gathered that approval for the facility was done without the knowledge of the Board of EDIF by the then acting Chief Executive, Agyabeng Antwi-Agyei on the 4th March 2011 and then cannily requested for the Board’s approval on the 17th March 2011, which was incidentally chaired by Nana Kodie Asare II who hurriedly pushed the deal through knowing what he has done. Nana Kodie Asare II, a 90% shareholder of the farm in a face saving act after the deal was unmask, tendered in his letter of resignation to the presidency citing Section 11 of the EDIF law as the main consideration for his decision and hopes to seek interpretation of the law at the High Court.

According to him, his action for a judicial declaration on the matter will not only be to the benefit of public servants in general but will also enrich the administration law of Ghana.

The Alliance Farms Limited’s nature of authorized business is general farming and import and export of farm produce and located at Mampong-Ashanti with postal address Box 156 Mampong. Benjamin Kwadjo Addae (Nana Kodie Asare II) owes 45,000 shares of the company, which translates to 90% while his partner Nana Kwabena Ofori of Ahenfie Bosomkyekye owes 5,000 shares, representing 10% stake in the farms.

The managing director of the company, one Andrews Kwesi Addae, coincidentally bears the same surname as the EDIF Board member involved in the scam.