FULL TEXT: Attorney General's presentation on alleged criminal activities at National Food and Buffer Stock Company
PRESS BRIEFING BY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: UPDATE ON ORAL AND ANNOUNCEMENT OF INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE OPERATION OF A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE AT THE NATIONAL FOOD AND BUFFER STOCK COMPANY
My Fellow countrymen and women
I am here this morning to account to the sovereign people of Ghana as has been my practice since assuming office as Attorney General. Today, I will do two things. Firstly, I will provide update on the ORAL investigations we have been conducting and the ORAL-related prosecutions that have been filed so far.
Second, you would recall that on March 20, 2025, when I announced the Kwabena Adu-Boahene investigation, I referred to an ongoing investigation as the “Rumble in the Jungle”. The reference was to the Buffer Stock criminal investigation. I will this morning announce the conclusion of investigations into the elaborate criminal enterprise that started in 2018 after the appointment of Hannan Abdul-Wahab as chief executive officer.
As far as the ORAL investigations are concerned, the status report is as follows: Out of the Report of the ORAL Committee submitted to my office, we instructed the National Intelligence Bureau in March 2025 to conduct investigations into cases of suspected acts of theft and graft by public officials and their allies in the private sector. The investigations were necessary because the ORAL Committee Reports did not contain the evidence required to prove the guilt of the suspects in court beyond reasonable doubt. It is always important to remember that the ORAL Committee was tasked by His Excellency the President to receive complaints of looting of state resources.
Our investigators have diligently concluded investigations in the following cases-
Skytrain
National Service Ghost Names Scandal
District Road Improvement Project (DRIP)
National Lotteries
Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam
SML
Frontier Health Care Services
Free Wifi
National Ambulance
Boankra Integrated Inland Logistics Terminal
Sputnik V Vaccines Case
Land looting- 8 instances investigated
Prosecutions have commenced in the Skytrain and National Service scandals. In the case of the latter, we have filed charges against the former Executive Director, Osei Assibey Antwi and his deputy, Gifty Oware. Charges are being prepared against the rest of the public officers and the so-called marketplace vendors. In all, we intend to file about 10 cases in the NSA scandal and will use some of the public officers and vendors as prosecution witnesses.
Also, I wish to announce that the Auditor General has conducted a forensic audit into the NSA scandal and the total amount of money stolen or illegally spent now stands at 2bn and not the Ghs548m that was uncovered by our investigators as at June 2025.
Investigations are still ongoing in respect of the following matters-
All African Games
Mathematical Sets
Bank of Ghana Building
Stadia Renovation
National Cathedral
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Rumble in the Jungle
Now to the Buffer Stock investigations which I nicknamed “The Rumble in the Jungle.” As of March 20, 2025, when we announced the arrest and detention of suspects Kwabena Adu Boahene and his wife Angela Boateng, the Economic and Organized Crime Office had gathered credible intelligence regarding a criminal enterprise that had been operated by the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company Limited, Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab.
Initial estimates put the amount of money pilfered by Mr. Abdul-Wahab and his collaborators at the time at around Fifty-Eight Million Ghana Cedis (Ghs58,000,000.00), far in excess of the Forty-Nine Million Ghana Cedis (Ghs49,000,000.00) suspected to have been stolen by Mr. Kwabena Adu Boahene and his co-accused persons.
I called the criminal enterprise operated by Mr. Abdul-Wahab and his collaborators at the Buffer Stock “the Rumble in the Jungle” not only because of the huge amount of money at stake but because of the fact that, while food suppliers were wailing and gnashing their teeth due to failure to pay them for supplies to the Buffer Stock, and while our school kids were being denied nutrition under the School Feeding Program for lack of funds, Mr. Abdul-Wahab and his collaborators were busy lawlessly looting funds meant for the Program.
That is jungle behavior. The informal meaning of the word “rumble” is to discover an illicit activity or its perpetrator. Through painstaking investigations, the EOCO discovered this illicit, criminal enterprise run by a gang of corrupt, lawless officials at the Buffer Stock Company.
Summary of the Findings
On June 25, 2025, the EOCO conducted a coordinated operation based upon their initial investigations which resulted in the arrest of Mr. Abdul-Wahab, former Cehief Executive of the National Food And Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO), his wife Faiza Seidu Wuni and James Atieku, the Buffer Stock manager for the Northern Sector who was based in Tamale. The operation also led to the arrest of Emmanuel Arthur, Head of Corporate Affairs of NAFCO.
The arrest followed Initial intelligence and assessment by EOCO which suggested that while serving as CEO of Buffer Stock between 2017 and 2024, Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab colluded with his wife, Faiza Seidu Wuni, Richard Sam Asante (Head of Finance), Bismark Owusu Boakye (Finance Department), and Emmanuel Arthur (Corporate Affairs Manager) and others to, to create an elaborate criminal enterprise that was used to steal and launder public funds from the Buffer Stock Company.
Within the period between 2017 and 2024, Hanan Abdul-Wahab, in concert with Richard Sam-Asante and Bismark Owusu Bokaye, orchestrated the transfer of Seventy-Eight Million Two Hundred And Sixty Nine Thousand, Eighty Four and Four Pesewas and Four Ghana Cedis (78, 269,084.04) from the bank accounts of Buffer Stock Company to a private company linked to Hanan Abdul-Wahab, his wife and staff of buffer stock Company at Republic Bank and ECOBANK.
Evidence shows that the funds were instantly retransferred to companies owned by Hanan Abdul-Wahab himself and companies and entities owned and associated with and Hanan and his wife . Similarly Evidence show that between December 2017 and May 2019, Hanan Abdul-Wahab transferred Five Million, Four Hundred And Ninety Five thousand, Seven And Forty Eight Ghana Cedis and Thirty Six Pesewas (GHC 5, 495,748.36 ) from Buffer Stock accounts to two bank accounts belonging to Aludiba Enterprise at Republic Bank and ABSA, a company he owns.
Aludiba Enterprise is not a registered supplier of Buffer Stock Company. Hanan Abdul-Whab between October 2019 to January 2022 also orchestrated some suppliers to transfer an amount of Eleven Million Nine Hundred And Ninety Eight thousand Ghana Cedis and fourty Eight pesewas (GHC 11,998,830.48) to an entity owned by a staff of buffer stock and later instructed the staff to re-transfer the funds to a company owned and run by Hanan Abdul Wahab and his wife.
In July 2022, investigations found that Hanan Abdul Wahab transferred GHC 251,050 from Buffer Stock Accounts to a bank account at Republic Bank belonging to Energy Partners Ltd, a company co-owned by the Hanan Abdul Wahab and Emmanuel Arthur, the Head of Corporate Affairs of Buffer Stock company. Energy Partners is not a service provider for Buffer stock. yet another company. The evidence gathered so far shows that they run this criminal enterprise under the pretext of supplying food items to schools under the School Feeding Program.
Seven entities linked to Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab and his wife were used as vehicles to receive and to launder the proceeds of crime from Buffer Stock. The money laundering took the form of property acquisitions across the country, including real estate and luxury goods using the same entities. The entities in question are as follows:
Alqarni Enterprise
Aludiba Enterprise
Energy Partners Limited
Fa-Hausa Ventures
Fa-Hausa Company Limited and
Aludiba Foundation and
Sawtina Enterprise (owned by a third party connected to the couple)
