What was Chief of Staff's GH¢120,000 payment to Adwoa Safo for? – NDC demands

The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has questioned the rationale behind Chief of Staff (CoS) Madam Akosua Frema Osei-Opare paying an amount of GH¢120,000 to the embattled Member of Parliament (MP) for Dome-Kwabenya Constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Sarah Adwoa Safo, as alleged by Kennedy Agyapong, MP for Assin Central.

“We demand to know the purpose for which the money was paid”, General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Aseidu Nketia, requested in an interview with Kwame Obeng Sarkodie, host of the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM on Wednesday, February 23, 2022.

Mr Agyapong has alleged that the Chief of Staff transferred some GH¢120,000 into the bank account of the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection as part of measures to coax her to take part in the parliamentary proceedings concerning the e-levy.

“Adwoa Safo, Chief of Staff called me, I went there. She [Chief of Staff] said, now this is what she [Adwoa Safo] is saying; I swear on my mother’s grave; Chief of Staff gave me GH¢120,000, deposited in Adwoa Safo’s Fidelity Bank account. I put the money there in her Fidelity [Bank] account. Ask her PA if what I’m saying is not the truth. The way Adwoa is treating the party, it’s clearly showing that we are in opposition, and this should not be tolerated at all,” he said in an interview of Accra-based Asaase radio.

Reacting to this, Mr Nketia said the NDC wants to know the motive behind the payment of the said amount.

Mr Nketia said the NDC also wants to know where the Chief of Staff got the said money from.

“We are hoping the anti-corruption watching organizations are listening to the confessions of Mr Ken Agyapong in his desperation to have his baby-mama rescind her decision to hold the party to ransom over the passage of the Controversial E-levy,” he said.

“As a party, we are not letting these wanton dissipation of the state resources go unexplained; we’re going to demand answers for what the huge sum was meant for. Was it to entice the MP to make herself available in the house”? Mr Nketia quizzed.

Mr Agyapong also disclosed that Sarah Adwoa Safo was flown into Ghana on a private jet by the government of Ghana, through an arrangement spearheaded by Chief of Staff Frema Osei Opare, just so she could take part in the botched controversial e-levy vote in parliament which was scheduled to have taken place in the dying embers of last year.