E.T Mensah grilled by Serious Fraud Office

Enoch Teye Mensah, former Minister of Youth and Sports is reported to have appeared before the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) last Thursday. He is alleged to be involved in the payment of $1.5m into the New York Bay accounts for feasibility studies on the proposed Olympic Stadium.

The last time Mr Mensah appeared before the SFO is about a month ago. A source close to the SFO told The Evening News in Accra on Tuesday that Mensah appeared before a panel of investigators to answer questions on the deal which until then seemed to have died quietly.

An SFO source hinted that the panel subjected E.T. who is also the MP for Ningo Prampram to a barrage of questions for nearly three hours before setting him free. When he left the office, the source said Mensah looked visibly tired as he found it difficult to push open the swinging glass door of the SFO reception to go out.

The SFO launched the investigations last year, following reports that records of the feasibility studies supposed to have been conducted could not be traced at the Youth and Sports Ministry.

The $1.5m was part payment of a total of $1.8m authorised by Cabinet during the NDC regime and paid to Philips International, a US-based company, which was supposed to have conducted the studies.

Although Philips has F. Malawi as its local representative, the deal was negotiated through a company in Zimbabwe with one Nartey, a close associate and former Special Advisor to Mensah as the frontman. The Evening News investigations at the Youth and Sports Ministry last year revealed that there was no record on any feasibility studies on the proposed Olympics Stadium.

The Ministry source said there was no Geo-Technical or project site investigations report which would have defined the scope of the studies. Again, the source said there was no inception report, architect's report or any model of the project available at the Ministry to justify the payment of the $1.5m.