Manasseh Azure Awuni, an Investigative journalist, has revealed that former finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta left Ghana before the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) started SML investigations.
According to Manasseh Azure, the OSP Deputy Staff Officer at the Investigations Department, on January 29, 2025, contacted him following his petition in December 2023.
He revealed that they contacted him because the investigation team needed context and background on the issues.
Manasseh Azure highlighted that former President Akufo-Addo or the heads of security agencies cannot be blamed for non-cooperation, adding that at the time Ofori-Atta left the OSP had not started the investigation.
The Investigative journalist earlier disclosed that Ken Ofori-Atta left Ghana on January 4, 2025 and had a valid visa to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
Part of Manasseh Azure Awuni’s write-up stated, “If you do not know where this is going, here is some help. The OSP, which was petitioned in December 2023 to investigate the SML scandal in which Ken Ofori-Atta is implicated, was now asking me, the investigative journalist and petitioner, for information to help “in the preparation process of the investigation.”
The OSP was “in the preparation process of the investigation” in February 2025, a month after Ken Ofori-Atta had left Ghana.
This means that at the time Ken Ofori-Atta was leaving Ghana, the OSP did not have any evidence on its own to charge him because the investigation had not started.
In a response to my write-up yesterday, when Ken Ofori-Atta’s accomplice, Ernest Akore, was leaving Ghana, the OSP was not even a person of interest to the OSP. Ernest Akore left Ghana in November 2024, almost a year after the OSP was petitioned. He was not a person of interest because the OSP had not yet started the SML investigation.
So we cannot blame Akufo-Addo or the non-cooperation of the heads of security agencies for Ken Ofori-Atta’s departure when the OSP had not started the investigation.
This evidence-based chronology of events I have narrated also clearly contradicts the claims the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, made when he appeared on the KSM Show, hosted by Kwaku Sintim-Misa (KSM)”.
Read Manasseh’s write-up below:
“1. On JANUARY 29, 2025, Mark Kwaku Asiedu, a Deputy Staff Officer at the Investigations Department of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), contacted me. He said the OSP was ABOUT TO START investigations into the SML scandal, which I had petitioned the office in DECEMBER 2023.
2. Mr. Asiedu’s reason for contacting me was that the investigation team needed context and background on the issues, beyond my petition and the documentary.
3. This is standard practice. I had assisted the police, CHRAJ, and even the OSP in the past. Before they start their investigation, they would often speak to me, get more information or evidence that may not have made it to the publication.
4. We agreed to have that meeting on January 31, 2025. It was a virtual meeting because I was in the United States. In that meeting, the OSP’s investigative team, led by Mr Asiedu, asked fundamental questions about the SML story and possible leads to follow before they started the investigation. This was after I had given them a summary of the issues. [Evidence of the meeting invitation attached]
5. On FEBRUARY 5, Mr. Asiedu sent me an email as a follow-up to our previous week’s meeting and copied three other officials of the OSP. The email requested basic information on the SML story and some contacts of persons and institutions that were not suspects or directly linked to the scandal. [Email Attached]
6. That email read: “Our meeting last week refers. Kindly find below the list of the information we requested to aid us IN THE PREPARATION PROCESS OF THE INVESTIGATION.” (Emphasis mine)
7. If you do not know where this is going, here is some help. The OSP, which was petitioned in December 2023 to investigate the SML scandal in which Ken Ofori-Atta is implicated, was now asking me, the investigative journalist and petitioner, for information to help “in the preparation process of the investigation.”
8. The OSP was “in the preparation process of the investigation” in February 2025, a month after Ken Ofori-Atta had left Ghana.
9. This means that at the time Ken Ofori-Atta was leaving Ghana, the OSP did not have any evidence on its own to charge him because the investigation had not started.
10. In a response to my write-up yesterday, when Ken Ofori-Atta’s accomplice, Ernest Akore, was leaving Ghana, the OSP was not even a person of interest to the OSP. Ernest Akore left Ghana in November 2024, almost a year after the OSP was petitioned. He was not a person of interest because the OSP had not yet started the SML investigation.
11. So we cannot blame Akufo-Addo or the non-cooperation of the heads of security agencies for Ken Ofori-Atta’s departure when the OSP had not started the investigation.
12. This evidence-based chronology of events I have narrated also clearly contradicts the claims the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, made when he appeared on the KSM Show, hosted by Kwaku Sintim-Misa (KSM). One that show, Mr. Agyebeng made the following claims:
13. “We started our investigation in December 2023. By the end of December, we had a clear path of where we were going.”
14. “The law says do not intrude much into the lives of people and corporate entities during the preliminary stage. So, at that stage, we don’t go arresting people. We are quietly looking and questioning people. We only started calling in people in January 2025.”
15. “We’ve been doing this the whole of 2024. So we started in December 2023. By the ending of 2024, we knew what we were sitting on, what we had. That’s why in January [2025], we started inviting our primary suspects in.”
16. Unless Manasseh Azure Awuni is the primary suspect in the SML scandal, then the Special Prosecutor needs to tell us who was invited in January 2025. The primary suspects were invited in June 2025.
17. The persons and institutions whose contacts the OSP investigators requested in February 2025 were not primary suspects because the investigation was about to begin. This is standard practice in most investigations. Before you contact the primary suspects and delve deep into the issue, you begin with those on the periphery for a clear understanding before zooming in on the primary suspects. (In some investigations, however, it is best to hit at the primary targets first.)
18. The content of the February 5 email annoyed me, and I did not respond to the email. The top bosses of the OSP would not be surprised by this because, in December 2023 and throughout 2024, I had engaged them and complained about their delay in starting investigations. That delay could help the people involved put their house in order or hide some vital information. The OSP officials gave excuses, including the hostile environment of the Akufo-Addo regime and their own security.
19. I pointed out to them that it was in that same hostile environment that I led two other journalists to undertake the SML investigation. The OSP has more resources and power than the journalists. The OPS has the power to arrest, search, and raid premises and seize evidence. The journalists do not have that. The Special Prosecutor, in Kissi Agyebeng’s tenure, is one of the most protected public officials in Ghana, perhaps next to the President and Vice President. The journalists who did the SML investigation did not have police protection when we went about with our bare faces doing the SML investigation, and we have never dreamt of bulletproof cars. Only three journalists did the SML investigation in 2023. The OSP recruited 249 people in 2023 alone. So, the OSP was better placed than journalists to investigate corruption in the Akufo-Addo administration, despite the challenges. To date, the OSP officials and I still do not agree on the reason they delayed the investigation.
20. Five days after the OSP investigator sent me the email requesting information to prepare for the SML investigation, ORAL presented its report to President Mahama.
21. Two days after ORAL’s presentation, the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, mounted the podium and dramatically declared Ken Ofori-Atta a fugitive from justice. And what was number one on Mr. Ofori-Atta’s list of alleged acts of corruption? SML!
22. While returning from a funeral in Kumasi in June 2025, I shared a seat with a director at the OSP, Mr. Albert Akurugu, the man whose name Martin Kpebu mentioned in his allegations against the OSP. We struck up a conversation, and he stated that he had been handed the duty to lead a team to investigate the SML scandal, and it was good that we had met. I told him I had been contacted some months earlier, but I did not follow through with what the OSP team wanted because I was disappointed in the delay. He said he was now in charge and promised that his team would do a good job. The team, he said, had just begun, and they would need my support. I volunteered my time and supported.
23. I understand that Mr. Akurugu was handed the responsibility after the preliminary investigation, which proceeded after my February 2025 meeting with Mr. Asiedu and his team.
24. I don’t know the internal workings of the OSP, but contrary to claims made by Martin Kpebu and others that Mr. Akurugu was put on the case to avenge his enemies at the GRA, I realised his background gave him a firm grip on the matter. He didn’t need anyone to explain the workings of the ICUMS and other processes at the ports, where SML was carrying out its fantom responsibilities.
25. The OSP carried out the main SML investigation in June, July, and August 2025. They covered more ground and got far more incriminating evidence than we had uncovered in our investigation, thanks to the power of the OSP to arrest, raid and search SML’s premises and demand and receive documents that investigative journalists could not get.
26. The OSP has done a good job on the SML investigation, and it is left to be seen if the office will do a good job on the prosecution. But the thorny issues arising from the SML and Ken Ofori-Atta’s departure threaten the very existence of the OPS.
27. On the KSM show, Mr. Kissi Agyebeng repeatedly claimed that the difficulty in handling the SML matter and stopping Ken Ofori-Atta was because Ken Ofori-Atta’s cousin was the president at that time.
28. Accepting this excuse from Kissi Agyebeng or anyone else means the OSP should be scrapped. The OSP is supposed to be independent and do its work. The Attorney General often handles post-regime accountability. Proponents of the OSP thought that instead of waiting for the government to leave before corruption probes and prosecutions begin, an independent office could tackle corruption within regimes, which the Attorney-General, a politician and president’s appointee, may not do.
29. Are we saying in 2029, the OSP will be telling us that a certain investigation was not done or an action could not be taken because it involved President Mahama’s relative or close friend, and that the OSP anticipated it would not get cooperation from state agencies headed by the president’s appointees?
30. Like any institution, the OSP is bound to have its own challenges. But after eight years of its existence, we must go past these excuses. And this is why some of us are speaking up”.
