<<Print>>

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Ghana, especially those which profess to be anti-corruption ones have interstingly gone quiet despite the fact that the name of Ex-President Kufuor has appeared in the Panama Papers, an international corruption scandal which has rocked the international community.

The Panama papers is said to be the biggest and latest leak and is believed to be larger than the US diplomatic cables released by Wiki leaks in 2010. It involves the disclosure of confidential documents regarding offshore companies of over 110 politicians, their relatives and associates.

Ghana features prominently in it through ex-President Kufuor’s son, Chief Kufuor who is said to have controlled a $75, 000 bank account in Panama. This meant secretly opened a bank account in Panama with $75,000 into which funds were stashed to hide it away from Ghanaian authorities so he would avoid paying tax.

“In early 2001, shortly after the start of his father’s Presidential term, Kufuor appointed Mossack Fonsecca to manage the Excel 2000 Trust. Later, that year, it controlled a bank account in Panama worth $75,000,” said the cable.

It also revealed that President Kufuor’s wife, then Ghana’s First Lady was also a beneficiary of that account.

“In 2012, Kufuor asked Mossack Fonseca to close the trust. Files also connect Kufuor with BVI companies Fordiant Ltd and Stamford International Investments Group Limited. Both were registered when Kufuor’s father was President of Ghana and became inactive in 2004 and 2007,” it added Anti-corruption groups in countries whose leaders and ex-leaders are mentioned are putting pressures on the leaders to come clean.

In Iceland, protests by anti-corruption groups has seen the Prime Minister, Sigmunder Davio Gunnlauson, resigning after leaks in the Panama papers indicated his family sheltered money offshore.

In England, Prime Minister David Cameron, under pressure, released details of his tax returns after his father’s name appeared in the Panama papers as having held an offshore account.

Everywhere around the world, including FIFA, anti-corruption groups are agitating for persons whose names or relatives’ name have appeared in the leaks to come clean. But, the case in Ghana is interesting; the usually noisy anti-corruption groups in particularly together with their media collaborators have gone silent obviously because it is relatives of Ex-President Kufuor that has been mentioned.

If the names of former President Rawlings, late President Mills or current President John Mahama or that of their relatives had appeared in the Panama papers, Ghana’s CSOs, especially such groups as Ghana Anti-Corruption Group (GACG), Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) among others would have been scrambling to be heard on the matter. Obviously, to these groups, corruption perpetuated by some Ghanaians is no corruption.