Prosecute those behind MoFA grains scandal

A special audit has revealed a web of financial malfeasance at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), exposing how thousands of tonnes of rice and maize have vanished, contracts were handed to unregistered "phantom" companies, and a transport firm was bizarrely paid with bags of rice instead of cash.

The audit found that while only 24,000 tonnes of the rice were said to be distributed to eight regions, a staggering 10,000 tonnes could not be accounted for.  (See story on the front page of yesterday’s issue of Daily Graphic).

These are not merely cases of bureaucratic sloppiness or administrative lapse.

They represent a direct, bare-faced assault on the public purse, executed with a brazenness that borders on the surreal and a sophisticated criminal conspiracy.

Ghanaians are grappling with the absurdity of it all.

We are asked to believe that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the very institution tasked with ensuring the nation’s food security, entered into binding contracts with corporate phantoms. 

We are expected to accept that 10,000 metric tonnes of rice can vanish into thin air, with the chief procurement officer unable to explain its fate. 

We are told that rice was used as currency, handing a non-existent company a 41 per cent windfall at the taxpayer’s expense.

And we are informed that a ministry official responsible for millions of cedis’ worth of maize could not even locate the warehouse where it was supposedly stored.

This is not business as usual.

This is daylight robbery, and it must stop now.

We cannot allow this document to gather dust on a shelf while the perpetrators enjoy the fruits of their alleged crimes.

Therefore, the Daily Graphic calls on the Auditor-General to move with immediate effect from investigator to enforcer.

He must wield the powers of surcharge vested in his office without fear or favour.

The officers involved, specifically those who authorised payments to unregistered entities, who signed off on the delivery of rice as payment, and who failed to supervise the movement of food stocks, must be made to pay back every single pesewa.

The surcharge mechanism is a powerful tool designed precisely for such a scenario.

When public funds are lost due to negligence, recklessness, or direct malfeasance, the responsibility must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the individuals who failed in their duty. 

This is not about punishment; it is about restitution.

It is about sending a clear signal that stealing from the state is a bad debt that will be collected.

But a surcharge alone is not enough.

While financial recovery plugs the hole in the budget, it does not address the criminality of the act.

The Daily Graphic also demands swift and visible prosecutions.

We call on the Attorney-General’s Department to immediately take up this dossier and treat it with the urgency it deserves.

The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) and the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) must be brought in to unravel the full web of this conspiracy.

Who are the individuals behind the ghost companies Danaasi Farms and Rans Company Ltd?

How did they secure these contracts without a registration certificate?

Which officials at the Registrar General’s Department, if any, were complicit? Who gave the orders to use rice as currency, and why was that memo conveniently missing?

These are questions that demand answers in a court of law, not just in a press release.

For too long, the cycle of impunity in this country has followed a predictable pattern: a scandal breaks, a report is commissioned, the media moves on to the next story, and the files quietly disappear.

We cannot allow that to happen in these cases.

The sheer scale of the alleged theft, the absurdity of dealing with phantom companies, and the fact that it happened at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, where the livelihoods of farmers and the food on the tables of Ghanaians are at stake, make this a line in the sand.

We cannot continue with business as usual.

If we do, we send a message to every public officer that accountability is optional, that the surcharge mechanism is a paper tiger, and that the long arm of the law has arthritis. 

The Auditor-General must swing the sledgehammer of surcharge, and the prosecutors must swing the gavel of justice.

The people of Ghana deserve nothing less.