Agyapa deal: Akufo-Addo being misled again – Edudzi Tamakloe

Edudzi Tamakloe, an aide to former President John Mahama has queried whether President Akufo-Addo read the Attorney-General's advice on the Agyapa Royalties Agreement before giving an executive approval.

In an interview with Okay FM, Edudzi espoused that if the president or his secretary had the benefit of the Attorney-General’s position on the deal, he doubts if Nana Addo would have given it a seal of approval.

He suggested that the Attorney-General may have been sidestepped in the process leading up to the endorsement by the president.

He noted that like the botched PDS deal, President Akufo-Addo is being misled by some of his appointees.

“This whole agreement from the position of the Attorney General clearly shows that they are real issues. At the time when the president is purported to have given executive approval, had the president seen the August 4 opinion of his own lawyer. Did the president even seek the opinion of his own lawyer before giving it executive approval?”.

“The last time the president gave an executive approval on the Ameri agreement, the Stateman newspaper which is owned by Gabby Otchere-Darko said the president was misled. When the president purports to give Executive approval at the time he had not read the opinion of his lawyer, we’ll come back to a situation where it will be said that the president has been misled”.

Meanwhile, the government has defended its decision to go ahead with the deal despite the protest from some CSOs and the opposition NDC.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta at a press conference on August 28, 2020 said that the Agyapa deal is an innovative and creative means government wants to use to generate funds for developmental projects.

“This desire to domesticate our expectations when operating in the global market only adds to hurt and limits developing economies.”

“If the foreign investor can use the recoverable reserves in our country he has in a concession granted us, to him to raise money which he can choose to spend here or on other businesses he has elsewhere, why can’t we do the same to maximize the benefits we get and use that additional income to accelerate our development and by so doing, expand our economy.”