Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, has announced that former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company, Abdul-Wahab Hannan, acquired several high-value properties with proceeds from alleged financial crimes.
The revelations were made during a briefing under the Government Accountability Series at the Jubilee House.
According to Dr. Ayine, investigations show that the former CEO used illicit funds to purchase luxury properties in Accra and Tamale, worth several million dollars and Ghana cedis.
The list of assets uncovered includes:
- A five-bedroom house at Chain Homes valued at $1.625 million
- A three-bedroom house at Cantonments worth $600,000
- Plots of land at Airport Development estimated at $750,000
- A 17-bedroom boutique hotel at Gumani in Tamale valued at $250,000
- A four-bedroom bungalow at Dworwulu, Accra, costing GHS 4,142,451
- A 0.32-acre government land purchased for GHS 307,200
Additionally “Bank documents obtained by EOCO will reveal that within the period that the suspects operated this criminal enterprise, Mr Abdul-Wahab and his wife and their entities became the largest depositors at Republic Bank and the branch was at Labone.”
“Lastly, we have also, we have frozen all the assets of Hannan that I’ve listed, including a GHs10 million fixed deposit account at Republic Bank Labone branch. That is the liquid assets. They also have a lot of bags. I didn’t want to list them, the wife has over 61 luxury bags… He himself was buying watches, some costing as much as GHs1.5 million Ghana and so on.”
Dr. Ayine explained that the findings are part of a broader probe into a GHS 40.5 million money-laundering scheme involving Sawtina Enterprise, a company linked to Mr. Hannan.
The Attorney-General said the government is taking steps to retrieve all assets acquired through criminal proceeds and ensure accountability in the management of public funds.