Prince Mackay, the Chief Executive Officer of Big Events Ghana, has refuted allegations that the organisers had approached the Director-General of the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), Prof Michael Kpessa-Whyte, to seek sponsorship in exchange for an award.
The CEO of Big Events Ghana disclosed that they did not approach Prof. Kpessa-Whyte personally to sponsor the event in return for an award.
According to Prince Mackay, they wrote to SIGA as an institution for a sponsorship request, not directly to Prof. Kpessa-Whyte in his personal capacity.
Speaking on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News on Monday, June 8, Prince Mackay clarified, “I would like to start by saying thank you to Professor Whyte for his support of the event. We are an event company. Whenever we organise events, we send sponsorship letters out there. It’s not the first time it has happened”.
“I want to repeat, we didn’t write to Professor Whyte in person. We never asked him to sponsor the award. It was SIGA as a body that we wrote to, where he is the CEO,” he said.
“If I wrote a letter for you to sponsor me and you refused to sponsor me, why then would you put a statement out there that I came to solicit money for an award? That is not what I did, or what the organisation did,” he said.
Also, the Secretariat of the Ghana Ministers of State Excellence Honours has dismissed claims that the award scheme was influenced by financial contributions, sponsorship, or any form of payment.
According to the Secretariat, the selection was strictly based on merit and service to national development.
In a statement issued on Monday, June 8, the Secretariat disclosed, “No individual or institution is required to provide financial support in order to be considered for recognition, selected for an Honour, or receive an award. Recognition decisions under the Honours remain independent of stakeholder engagements associated with the organisation of the programme”.
His comment follows, Prof. Michael Kpessa-Whyte, who has blown the alarm on the controversial “Ghana Ministers of State Excellence Honours”.
According to the SIGA boss, he was asked to pay to receive an award at the “Ghana Ministers of State Excellence Honours”.
Kpessa-Whyte highlighted that attendance at the event to receive the supposed honour was tied to payment either of a sponsorship package of GH¢50,000 or the purchase of a dinner table of eight at GH¢25,000.
In a post shared on X the SIGA boss, Kpessa-Whyte, stated, “Out of caution, I advised my staff to contact the organisers and seek clarity. It was only then that we discovered that attendance at the event to receive the supposed honour was tied to payment.
The options communicated were either a sponsorship package of GH¢50,000 or the purchase of a dinner table for eight at GH¢25,000.
In other words, the path to public recognition appeared to have been tied to financial contribution.
I opted not to be part of it.”
Investigator admits no evidence links Akonta Mining to the equipment; only an alleged connection between an individual and one machine was established. – Wontumi’s Lawyer #GHNow pic.twitter.com/SjldXkobNE
— GHnow (@ghnow_) June 8, 2026
