Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, has revealed how former Deputy Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware-Mensah, allegedly secured a GH¢30,698,218.69 loan from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) through fraudulent means.
According to Dr. Ayine, Mrs. Oware-Mensah exploited the National Service Personnel (NSP) allowance system by using it as collateral to obtain the loan at an interest rate of 23%.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Friday, the Attorney General said the discovery was made during ongoing investigations by the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) taskforce.
“Some directors, such as Gifty Oware-Mensah, created and executed a meticulously detailed plan, using NSP allowances as security to obtain a loan of GH¢30,698,218.69 from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) at an interest rate of 23%,” he stated.
Dr. Ayine disclosed that Oware-Mensah allegedly registered a company, Blocks of Life Consult, using the identities of unsuspecting individuals, and submitted it to ADB through a middleman, identified as Maxwell Akwesi Ofori-Mintah.
Her husband, lawyer Peter Mensah, was said to have acted as one of the company’s representatives. The company was presented to ADB as a supplier of home appliances to National Service personnel on a hire-purchase basis, with repayments to be made through salary deductions managed by the NSA.
Dr. Ayine, however, clarified that Blocks of Life Consult was never an officially recognised vendor of the Authority, even though Oware-Mensah was Acting Director of the NSA at the time.
The Attorney General further revealed that between the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 service years, Oware-Mensah allegedly used 9,934 ghost names to divert funds.
After securing the loan, the money was reportedly distributed across four company accounts as follows:
GH¢22,925,518.69 to AMAECOM, where she is a listed director
GH¢1,000,000.00 to Scafold, linked to Abraham Gaisie
GH¢1,572,700.00 to OTCHEY
GH¢5,200,000.00 to Aristo Logistics and Trading
Dr. Ayine described the scheme as a “deliberate and sophisticated attempt to loot state resources,” and confirmed that further legal action would be taken as investigations continue.
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