The Attorney General (AG), Dr Dominic Ayine, yesterday gave the country what may be the government’s most revealing account in recent times of the war against corruption. He laid out figures, names, and the anatomy of greed, the progress of Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL), Ghana’s attempt to claw back what the public purse has lost.
The briefing mapped out the work of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), and the Auditor-General’s Department (AGD), all working with the judiciary to set up special courts for financial crimes.
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He started with the District Roads Improvement Project (DRIP), where J.A. Plant Pool Ghana Ltd had been overpaid by $2 million on a $176 million contract. The audit revealed 190 machines cleared as tax-exempt, cheating the state of ₵38.7 million in duties. Equipment valued at $40,000 was invoiced at $84,000. The AG ordered the refund and directed the GRA to retrieve the taxes.
Next came the National Service Authority (NSA) ghost-names saga. What started as ₵548 million in losses has ballooned to ₵2.2 billion after a forensic audit. Prosecutions are now underway against former Executive Director Osei Assibey Antwi and several vendors, while minor players have turned witnesses to expose the architects of the fraud.
Then came the “Rumble in the Jungle,” the ongoing trial of Kwabena Adu Boahene, former Director-General of the National Signals Bureau (NSB). Arrested on 20 March 2025, he is accused of diverting ₵49.1 million, about $7 million, from a cyber-defence contract with Israeli firm ISC Holdings Ltd that was never executed.
Investigators say the money travelled through Advantage Solutions Ltd and BNC Communications Bureau Ltd, both tied to Adu Boahene. He faces charges of stealing, money laundering, defrauding by false pretences, and willfully causing financial loss. The High Court has refused to halt the trial. Ayine called it “a criminal operation within a security agency,” a reminder that impunity often hides behind the language of national security.
But if that case speaks of power gone rogue, the next tells of those who dined on our labour and forgot our hunger.
Between 2017 and 2024, Hanan Abdul-Wahab, former CEO of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO), allegedly turned public food funds into private gold. Working with his wife, Faiza Seidu Wuni, and aides Emmanuel J.K. Arthur, Richard Sam-Asante, Bismark Owusu-Boakye, and James Atu Appiah, he is accused of siphoning millions through front companies.
Over ₵50.8 million moved from Buffer Stock accounts to Sawtina Enterprise, linked to the couple. Only ₵27.3 million had legitimate backing. The rest disappeared through shell firms, including Alqarni Enterprise, Aludiba Enterprise, Energy Partners Ltd, Fa Hausa Ventures, and Aludiba Foundation. FIC records trace ₵40.49 million re-routed, ₵16.17 million to Abdul-Wahab, ₵23.91 million to Alqarni, ₵500,000 to Fa Hausa, and ₵550,000 to Chain Homes Ghana Ltd, one of Accra‘s luxury developers.
Property seizures include a five-bedroom house ($1.6 million), a three-bedroom house ($600,000), land ($750,000), a 17-bedroom hotel ($250,000), a four-bedroom house (₵4.1 million), and government land (₵307,000).
It is this skyline of excess that Hon. Sam Nartey George, MP for Ningo-Prampram and Minister for Digital and Communications, has long warned about, the quiet link between real estate and money laundering. Ayine echoed him, saying, “Look at the skyline of Accra; it’s beautiful, but it must rise on clean money.” The Buffer Stock case, he said, shows how stolen cedis can shape a city’s shine.
When questioned, Abdul-Wahab said he earned between ₵14,000 and ₵28,000 a month. His wife received ₵5,000. Their income could not explain assets worth over $5 million. Investigators found 61 designer bags and watches valued at around ₵1.5 million. The couple now faces charges of stealing, conspiracy, causing financial loss, using public office for profit, and laundering proceeds of crime. “While suppliers waited for arrears,” Ayine said, “officials were buying mansions with public money.”
The AG also pointed to ongoing audits at the Boankra Inland Port and the National Cathedral, alongside probes into the SML-GRA deal, the Sputnik V vaccines procurement, the Free Wi-Fi project, the All-Africa Games, the NLA, the Mathematical Sets procurement, the Bank of Ghana building, and stadium renovations.
He confirmed collaboration with the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), though slower than expected. On the issue of former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, Ayine explained that while the OSP initiated an extradition request in June, his ministry could not act without the full investigative docket and authenticated evidence required under Ghana’s extradition laws. He praised the Auditor-General’s Department for pairing prosecutions with constitutional surcharge powers under Article 187 and insisted there had been no political interference. “No one has asked me to cut a deal. The only deals we make are those approved by the courts.”
The figures tell a grim story: ₵2.2 billion lost in the NSA case, ₵49 million from national security, ₵50.8 million from Buffer Stock, and millions more in taxes. Yet, for once, the state appears to be following the paper trail, freezing assets, and naming names.
Still, recovery is only half the battle. Seizing a mansion is easy; turning it into a public good is harder. Ghana needs an Asset Recovery Dashboard to show where the confiscated wealth goes. Without transparency, even justice can relapse.
Ayine ended by thanking the NIB, EOCO, and FIC for their diligence. For once, accountability sounded less like politics and more like procedure.
His final appeal was simple: add the salaries, the assets, the invoices, and the lies. Ask how a public servant earning ₵28,000 a month owns a $1.6 million mansion. Ask how a security chief diverts cyber funds into private wealth. Ask why ghost names still feed off a living nation.
The “rumble in the jungle” is not about one man. It is about whether Ghana’s institutions can still roar. The jungle is not in the wild; it is in our offices, our banks, and our silence. The measure of ORAL will not be in press conferences but in convictions, recoveries, and reforms that endure.
Justice must not only roar. It must deliver.
