The Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh, has called out the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament over the plan to visit the country’s embassy in Washington, US, which was closed down for three days over a corruption scandal.

In a post shared on Facebook, Thursday, May 29, 2025, Professor Prempeh asserted that the visit was unnecessary.

He said that the committee would not find anything different from what has been reported by the government.

“Wasteful free ride to DC. What exactly do you hope to find there that a report from the Minister or Ambassador can't tell you?” he quizzed.

Professor Prempeh, who is the chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee, made these remarks while reacting to a video of a press conference of the committee on Thursday.

The chairman of the committee, Alfred Okoe Vanderpuye, who was addressing the press over the corruption scandal, indicated that they would go to the embassy to ascertain what happened for themselves.

“Members of this committee in the near future, very near future, will go to the embassy to ascertain matters for ourselves, that the public is being served with the highest level of satisfaction and no iota of corruption," he wrote.

Vanderpuye also indicated that there are more embassies engaging in the same corruption scandal.

“We are also aware, we have information that such practices are taking place in other embassies. We are very much aware of that as members of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

“So we embolden the minister that he should take the necessary steps to ensure that all of our embassies across the length and breadth of this world will be there to serve the people's interest,” he added.

About the Ghana Embassy in Washington:

Ghana's Embassy in Washington, DC, is scheduled to reopen today, Thursday, May 29, 2025, after being temporarily closed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.

The facility was shut down on Monday, May 26, 2025, following a purported corruption scandal involving the embassy's visa department.

A local IT worker is alleged to have transferred embassy monies into a personal account, Minister Ablakwa disclosed in a Facebook post.

This link redirected applicants for visa and passport services to his private company, Ghana Travel Consultants (GTC), where unapproved fees ranging from $29.75 to $60 were charged and deposited into his personal account.

Investigations suggest this scheme operated undetected for at least five years.

In response to the scandal, all Foreign Affairs Ministry staff posted to the Washington, DC embassy were recalled to Accra.

The embassy's IT department was dissolved, and all locally recruited staff were suspended pending further investigation.

See Professor Prempeh's post and the video below:



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