Aspiring KMA Mayor indicted for dishing out Common Fund cash as loans

• Kennedy Kwasi Kankam has been indicted by the Audit Service

• Kennedy Kwasi Kankam is aspiring to be KMA Mayor

Kennedy Kwasi Kankam, an aspiring Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Mayor has been indicted by the Audit Service for misapplying his portion of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) meant for development projects.

The former Nhyiaeso MP is alleged to have given instructions for an amount of GH¢500,000 to be transferred from his share of the DACF to a private bank, which he shared as loans to 430 people in his constituency in 2020.

The audit report which covered January to December 2020 stated that several months after the amount was disbursed, no efforts have been made to recover the money.

“The [then] Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso (Hon. Kennedy Kwasi Kankam) together with erstwhile Finance Officer (Mr Daniel Kofi Kankam) and Coordinating Director (Mr Samuel Donkor) transferred a total amount of GH₵500,000.00 from the MPs Constituency Labour Project Fund and Social Investment Fund to [a privately owned bank] …for onward disbursements to 430 people on loan, recoverable by August 2020.

“But as of January 2021, no recovery had been made, thus exposing the Assembly to a high risk of losing the GH₵500,000.00, which could have funded projects to the benefit of the entire community,” the report noted.

The Audit Service recommended that Kankam and the officials involved should “take steps to recover the amount into the KMA Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso’s Common Fund account”.

The report among other things uncovered several financial irregularities at the KMA concerning the utilisation of the DACF.

Some of the infractions included the payment of GH₵670,720.78 as judgement debt from the DACF instead of the internally generated fund of the assembly, the overpayment of contract sums, failure to pay contractors on time leading to delay in completion of projects, among others.

The infractions occurred under the leadership of Osei Assibey Antwi, the current Mayor of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, who is seeking to be retained for the position in President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s second term in office.