Courage Makafui Nunekpeku the Managing Director of the Tema Development Company Limited (TDC) has revealed that preliminary investigations have exposed the sale of several parcels of land in Tema Community 24 to family members of Ofori-Atta and associates.
According to the Managing Director, the exposé comes on the back of an internal review across TDC’s departments, which exposed major abnormalities and has triggered a call for external investigation.
Makafui Nunekpeku asserted that records point to land sales made during the tenure of his predecessor, Alice Abena Ofori-Atta, who is connected to the Ofori-Atta family.
Nevertheless, whether the Ofori Atta family members and associates paid the required price for the lands, remains unclear.
Persons fingered in the alleged transactions, include Eno Ofori-Atta, the ex-deputy Managing Director of the State-owned Agric Development Bank (ADB), and wife of Earl Ofori–Atta a brother of former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta alongside Dora Ofori-Atta, Nana Poku Ofori-Atta, Nana Kwame Ofori-Atta, Daniel Marfo Ofori-Atta.
Stephen Asamoah Boateng, Owusu Afriyie Prempeh and numerous companies allegedly linked to these individuals, have also been fingered in the alleged land grabbing.
The new TDC MD detailed that the call for investigations was rooted in documented information and not speculation and revealed that some companies were allocated as much as 25 acres of land, while others received between 2 and 10 acres of prime commercial plots.
Speaking at a press conference at the TDC office in Tema on Thursday, April 10, the new MD, Courage Makafui Nunekpeku, stated, “A land audit will be conducted to ensure accountability. Nothing will stop the investigations we’re going to do. The only thing that can stop it will be probably the sector minister or the President. Apart from that, nothing is going to stop it. We will continue to do the land audit to make sure that people account for their stewardship.”
He further quizzed the concentration of land ownership within the Ofori Atta family, “You cannot be the Managing Director that presides over the sale of land, and properties to this level and think that you should not be called to account. For every ten plots in layer T of the categorised land, two or three plots belong to an Ofori-Atta. I mean, why? Is that the only family we have in Ghana? These are facts, nobody can change it.”
The TDC management also revealed some alleged procurement breaches and financial malfeasance..
He added, “We are looking into some IT contracts that we have awarded. We cannot pay $1 million, and I don’t have access to that document or that software. So, EOCO will intervene to see what went wrong.”
“In addition to that, I have also written another letter to EOCO concerning another issue. I won’t disclose that one for now. They will also come in and do some investigations. We will be embarking on a lot of investigations into land issues.”
Meanwhile, addressing a staff durbar, the MD, revealed that an audit conducted upon his assumption of office uncovers all TDC’s lands, including reserved and union lands, had been sold to non-existent companies and often without due process.
