Ken Ofori-Atta Personally Endorsed Faulty SML Contract Despite Knowing Firm’s Incompetence – OSP Says
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has established that former Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, played a direct and central role in advancing the controversial Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) contract, despite full knowledge of the company’s operational incompetence.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, October 30, 2025, Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng disclosed that the OSP’s findings point to deliberate misconduct, personal intervention, and complicity on the part of the former minister in causing financial loss to the state.
“Mr. Ofori-Atta’s participation in personally promoting the course of SML had become pronounced,” Mr. Agyebeng stated.
According to the OSP’s investigation, Mr. Ofori-Atta ignored glaring red flags and proceeded to authorise millions of cedis in payments to SML from three key state accounts — the Consolidated Fund, Petroleum Revenue Account, and the Tax Refund Account — without any verifiable technical or operational justification.
Minister’s Direct and Persistent Involvement
The OSP report revealed a consistent pattern of personal involvement by Mr. Ofori-Atta in promoting SML’s operations. A key piece of evidence cited was a directive issued on 29 August 2019, instructing his technical advisor, through his chef de cabinet, to integrate SML’s system with that of West Blue Consulting and the Customs Technical Services Bureau.
The investigation further established that Mr. Ofori-Atta was “copied in every email chain,” an indicator that he was fully aware of SML’s limited capacity to perform the contracted services.
“He was placed in direct knowledge of SML’s operational and full incapacity, and that it was hardly performing any service to deserve the payment of fees,” the report noted.
Conspiratorial Silence and Unlawful Payments
Despite his awareness of SML’s inefficiency, the OSP found that Mr. Ofori-Atta failed to act, choosing instead to approve payments that lacked legal and operational justification.
“Had he not been personally benefiting from SML’s unlawfully procured contracts, the open display by SML of lack of capacity, expertise and tools would have immediately triggered his intervention to halt payments to SML and demand accountability,” Mr. Agyebeng asserted.
The report described the former minister’s silence as “conspiratorial,” suggesting a deliberate effort to facilitate the disbursement of public funds to an undeserving contractor.
SML’s Operational Failures and Financial Loss to the State
The OSP’s investigation also detailed SML’s inability to deliver on its core contractual obligations, including transaction auditing and external price verification.
Fifteen months after the contract commenced, SML reportedly had no system in place to receive customs control and valuation records (ccvrs), the core data required for its work. Compounding the issue, the incumbent data provider, West Blue Consulting, was under no legal obligation to share such data with SML.
Despite these deficiencies, SML continued to receive payments, a development the OSP says resulted in significant financial loss to the Republic.
“The persistent troubleshooting displayed during this period was born of the unlawful imposition of SML in the space and the still lingering reality of SML’s lack of capacity to carry out transaction audits and external price verification,” the Special Prosecutor noted.
The OSP’s findings reinforce its earlier stance that the SML contract was not founded on genuine operational need but rather driven by self-serving official patronage, paving the way for criminal charges against those involved.
