A wealthy businessman has been accused of attempting to bribe some 90 New Patriotic Party MPs, who are pushing for the removal of Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta.

Last week, a group of NPP MPs petitioned President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to sack Mr Ofori Atta as well as the Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Mr Charles Adu Boahen, to restore public confidence in the economy.

The Majority Leader, Osei-Mensah-Bonsu, speaking in an interview on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, on the PM Express programme on Accra-based Multi TV, announced that the businessman attempted to bribe the MPs to back down on their quest to have the finance minister removed.

He said the businessman decided his business interests were going to go down if the finance minister was removed.

According to him, he was informed that the said businessman requested to meet the MPs who took the unprecedented step of demanding the removal of the finance minister.

He explained that after the said meeting, the wealthy businessman left an envelope allegedly containing some money.

The 90 NPP MPs’ spokesperson, Mr Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Asante-Akim North in the Ashanti Region, denied taking the said bribe from the wealthy businessman.

He admitted the wealthy businessman offered 'something' which was in an envelope after the said meeting.

"We refunded it to him on the principle that we are not doing what we are doing for money".

"Because of that, we did not open the envelope to even know how much was in it," he revealed.

The majority caucus in parliament recently gave President Nana Akufo-Addo up to the passage of the appropriation bill following the reading of the 2023 budget in November 2022, to act on their demand that Mr Ofori-Atta exit the government.

This was after the president tabled a plea to that effect at an emergency meeting with the caucus at the Jubilee House on Tuesday, 25 October.

A statement issued by Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, on Wednesday, said: “The president engaged the members of the caucus and requested that the issue be stood down until the conclusion of the round of negotiations with the IMF and the presentation of the budget statement and economic policy in November 2022 and the subsequent passage of the appropriation bill, after which time the demand will be acted upon”.

“After deliberations among the majority caucus today, Wednesday, 26 October 2022, it was agreed to accede to the president’s appeal”, the statement said.

The majority caucus gave the president an ultimatum to dismiss Mr Ofori-Atta and Mr Adu Boahen or they will boycott the 2023 budget hearing and other government businesses on the floor of parliament.

The caucus, led by spokesperson Andy Appiah Kubi, issued the ultimatum within the precincts of parliament on Tuesday, 25 October 2022 when the house resumed sitting after a long recess.

He told the parliamentary press corps: “We are members of the majority caucus of the parliament of Ghana and we, here so, present; represent a greater number of the said caucus”.

“My name is Andy Appiah Kubi and I am only here as the spokesperson for the majority group – without more”, he caveated.

Mr Appiah-Kubi continued: “We have had occasions to defend allegations of conflict of interest, lack of confidence [and] trust against the leadership of our finance ministry”, however, “the recent developments within our economy are of great concern to the greater majority of the members of our caucus and our constituents”.

“We have made our grave concerns [known] to the president through the parliamentary leadership and the leadership of the party without any positive response”, he revealed.

“We are, by this medium, communicating our strong desire that the president change the minister of finance and the minister of state at the finance ministry, without further delay, to restore hope to the financial sector and reverse the downward trend in the growth of the economy”, the group demanded.

“The summary of our concerns lead to a plea that the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken OfoRI-Atta and the Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Mr Charles Adu-Boahen, be removed from office. We pray that this prayer would be carried to the presidency”.

The caucus then threatened: “Meanwhile, we want to serve notice, and notice is hereby served that until such persons, as aforementioned, are made to resign or removed from office, we, members of the majority caucus here in parliament, will not participate in any business of the government by or for the president by any other minister”.

“We hope that those of us at the backbench and members of the majority caucus will abide by this prayer”, the group added.

“We are saying that if our request is not responded to positively, we will not be present for the budget hearing nor will we participate in the debate”, Mr Appiah-Kubi stressed.

Also, the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) had demanded that President Akufo-Addo reassign Mr Ofori-Atta and Mr Adu Boahen if he cannot dismiss them.

The pro-government pressure group said in a press statement that the two ministers are to blame for the poor performance of the Ghana cedi in relation to other international trade currencies.  

“The Minister of Finance and the Minister of State at the Ministry, Ken Ofori Atta and Charles Adu Boahen, must be reassigned,” the group demanded.   

AFAG's demand came a few days after media personality and comic Kwaku Sintim-Misa, alias KSM, asked Mr Ofori-Atta to resign.

He said this in a tweet where he claimed to be giving advice to Mr Ofori-Atta.  

The award-winning comic posited that President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is cousins with Ken Ofori-Atta, has no desire to sack him from office for a more competent person to assume it, even though it is the best for Ghana’s ailing economy.  

“Advice to Ken Ofori-Atta. Bra [brother] Ken, it is obvious the President cannot and will not fire you,” Mr Sintim-Misa began.  

“Please do him and Ghana a favour and respectfully resign for a competent financial manager to take charge,” he advised.  

According to the TV show host, the resignation of the Finance Minister will be followed by restored confidence in Ghana’s economic recovery.  

“I am sure that the financial markets will react positively to the news,” is how he put it.  

Also, another entertainment personality, Lydia Forson, recently said: “It makes absolutely no sense that Ken Ofori-Atta is still the finance minister,” and queried: “How?”  

“He’s lost the confidence of the people!” she argued.  

The clamour for Mr Ofori-Atta's head come on the back of the cedi’s very poor performance against the US dollar.  

Bloomberg has named the Ghana cedi as the worst-performing currency in the world.

At the time of KSM and Lydia Forson's tweets, one needed more than 15 cedis to obtain a dollar in Accra, the capital of Ghana.  

Recently, the United Kingdom’s Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked and subsequently their Prime Minister, Liz Truss, also resigned.

A section of the Ghanaian public have asked why this is not common in Ghana.  

President Nana Akufo-Addo, last week, said Mr Ofori-Atta has been an excellent handler of the Ghanaian economy and, thus, sees no reason to sack him as being clamoured for by his critics.

Speaking to OTEC FM in the Ashanti Region on the first day of his four-day official working tour of that part of Ghana, Mr Akufo-Addo parried criticisms that his cousin is to blame for Ghana’s return to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help since he mismanaged the economy.  

The president said he takes full responsibility for Ghana’s return to the IMF since he took the decision as the head of state.  

He argued that the same Ofori-Atta was able to manage an IMF-programmed economy that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) inherited in 2017 to become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with an average annual growth rate of 7%.  

The president, thus, wondered, how he could cut ties with Mr Ofori-Atta as finance minister.  

The president said he has a lot of difficulty understanding the clamour for Mr Ofori-Atta’s exit, since, he noted, even the IMF confirmed that the causes of the current economic situation in Ghana are global in nature rather than a result of internal mismanagement.  

“It is very easy for people to say we went back to the IMF due to mismanagement of the economy. I do not accept that criticism because the reasons why we got into the situation we find ourselves has very little to do with us. In fact, the IMF confirmed this.”