Ghana’s embassy in US lost about $4.8m annually to fraud - Ablakwa calls for forensic audit

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has called on the Economic and Organised Crime Office, the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Justice to carry out forensic investigations and trace proceeds made by Fred Kwarteng, a dismissed IT officer of the Ghana Mission in Washington DC.

He said the two institutions must prosecute Kwarteng and his network of collaborators to determine the total cost of all transactions carried out under the corrupt scheme.

“EOCO has been formally notified to pursue Fred Kwarteng and trace the proceeds of crime and to have him brought to Ghana for prosecution,” he said.

 “Given that these are funds that were derived from unauthorised operations, it has become imperative to invite the EOCO and the Attorney-General to investigate, trace the proceeds and prosecute Fred Kwarteng and his collaborators as instructed by the President,” he said.  

US authorities

Briefing the House on the temporary closure and subsequent re-opening of Ghana’s mission in Washington DC in Parliament yesterday, Mr Ablakwa also gave an assurance that in a bid to hold Kwarteng accountable under the law, the ministry was cooperating with US authorities to freeze any accounts linked to the criminal enterprise.

Mr Ablakwa told the House that Fred Kwarteng earned substantial sums annually after adding fees for assisting applicants in completing their visa and passport forms for which he charged between $60 and $100.

By conservative analysis, he said Fred Kwarteng was making about $4.8 million annually from his unlawful enterprise.

“It is important to emphasise that there was no share of this amount to the ministry.

He told the House that Fred Kwarteng’s company operated from offices located about a 40-minute drive from the embassy, raising concerns regarding the nature of that arrangement and the extent of oversight exercised by the embassy. 
 

Conflict of interest 

The minister said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took an extraordinary but necessary step to temporarily close the Ghana mission in Washington DC and recall staff to Accra following reports of grave legal infractions.

That decision, he said, was made after thorough deliberations prompted by incriminating findings from a Special Audit Team, which uncovered instances of fraud, conflict of interest and corruption, particularly involving visa processing and the unauthorised activities of a third-party agent operating under the name, Ghana Travel Consultants (GTC).

He said the special audit team he set up was made up of senior management officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who uncovered a complex web of corruption that compromised the integrity and efficiency of the embassy's operations.

Among the findings were the unlawful activities and conflict of interest involving Kwarteng, who was formally employed on August 11, 2017, as an Information Technology Officer and continued to work with the mission with a renewal of annual temporary appointments.

He said it also emerged that Kwarteng was not qualified to be employed as a local because he did not possess the appropriate legal status to be employed in the USA. 

Conflict of interest

Additionally, the investigations revealed that Kwarteng was the owner and main operator of GTC, the company that was later mysteriously contracted to provide exclusive courier handling for the mission, effective January 1, 2023.

The minister said following the COVID-19 pandemic, Ghana’s mission in Washington DC adopted a fully online mailing system for visa and passport dispatch, a process which was managed by GTC which belonged to Kwarteng, who was employed at the mission as an IT staff.

Under that arrangement, he said visa applicants were offered delivery options via FedEx and USPS for which they were charged $29.75 each.

Additionally, GTC also aided applicants in completing visa and passport forms for a fee of between $60 to $100 per applicant.

He explained that 99 per cent of all applicants utilised the services of GTC, meaning 99 per cent of all applicants paid an extra $29.75.