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The Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, has revealed fresh details of financial wrongdoing involving the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company (NAFCo), Abdul-Wahab Hanan. The new revelations were made during the Government Accountability Series on October 22, 2025. According to Dr Ayine, ongoing investigations have uncovered a complex money-laundering scheme involving suspicious financial transfers totaling more than GH¢40.5 million through Sawtina Enterprise, a company allegedly linked to the former CEO. He noted that the findings point to a deliberate effort to conceal illicit financial transactions, adding that his office is working with relevant investigative bodies to ensure full accountability and possible prosecution of all those implicated. From GH¢548 Million to GH¢2.2 Billion: NSS payroll scandal deepens after forensic audit Read the Attorney-General’s full presentation below: My Fellow countrymen and women I am here this morning to account to the sovereign people of Ghana as has been my practice since assuming office as Attorney General. Today, I will do two things. Firstly, I will provide update on the ORAL investigations we have been conducting and the ORAL-related prosecutions that have been filed so far. Second, you would recall that on March 20, 2025, when I announced the Kwabena Adu-Boahene investigation, I referred to an ongoing investigation as the “Rumble in the Jungle”. The reference was to the Buffer Stock criminal investigation. I will this morning announce the conclusion of investigations into the elaborate criminal enterprise that started in 2018 after the appointment of Abdul-Wahab Hanan as chief executive officer. As far as the ORAL investigations are concerned, the status report is as follows: Out of the Report of the ORAL Committee submitted to my office, we instructed the National Intelligence Bureau in March 2025 to conduct investigations into cases of suspected acts of theft and graft by public officials and their allies in the private sector. The investigations were necessary because the ORAL Committee Reports did not contain the evidence required to prove the guilt of the suspects in court beyond reasonable doubt. It is always important to remember that the ORAL Committee was tasked by His Excellency the President to receive complaints of looting of state resources. Our investigators have diligently concluded investigations in the following cases- • National Service Ghost Names Scandal • District Road Improvement Project (DRIP) • National Lotteries • Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam • Frontier Health Care Services • Free Wifi • National Ambulance • Boankra Integrated Inland Logistics Terminal • Sputnik V Vaccines Case • Land looting- 8 instances investigated Prosecutions have commenced in the Skytrain and National Service scandals. In the case of the latter, we have filed charges against the former Executive Director, Osei Assibey Antwi and his deputy, Gifty Oware. Charges are being prepared against the rest of the public officers and the so-called marketplace vendors. In all, we intend to file about 10 cases in the NSA scandal and will use some of the public officers and vendors as prosecution witnesses. Also, I wish to announce that the Auditor General has conducted a forensic audit into the NSA scandal and the total amount of money stolen or illegally spent now stands at GH¢2 billion and not the GH¢548 million that was uncovered by our investigators as at June 2025. Investigations are still ongoing in respect of the following matters- • All African Games • Mathematical Sets • Bank of Ghana Building • Stadia Renovation • National Cathedral Ladies and Gentlemen: Rumble in the Jungle Now to the Buffer Stock investigations which I nicknamed “The Rumble in the Jungle.” As of March 20, 2025, when we announced the arrest and detention of suspects Kwabena Adu Boahene and his wife Angela Boateng, the Economic and Organized Crime Office had gathered credible intelligence regarding a criminal enterprise that had been operated by the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company Limited, Abdul-Wahab Hanan. Initial estimates put the amount of money pilfered by Mr. Abdul-Wahab and his collaborators at the time at around Fifty-Eight Million Ghana Cedis (GH¢58,000,000.00), far in excess of the Forty-Nine Million Ghana Cedis (GH¢49,000,000.00) suspected to have been stolen by Mr. Kwabena Adu Boahene and his co-accused persons. I called the criminal enterprise operated by Mr. Abdul-Wahab and his collaborators at the Buffer Stock “the Rumble in the Jungle” not only because of the huge amount of money at stake but because of the fact that, while food suppliers were wailing and gnashing their teeth due to failure to pay them for supplies to the Buffer Stock, and while our school kids were being denied nutrition under the School Feeding Program for lack of funds, Mr. Abdul-Wahab and his collaborators were busy lawlessly looting funds meant for the Program. That is jungle behavior. The informal meaning of the word “rumble” is to discover an illicit activity or its perpetrator. Through painstaking investigations, the EOCO discovered this illicit, criminal enterprise run by a gang of corrupt, lawless officials at the Buffer Stock Company. Summary of the Findings On June 25, 2025, the EOCO conducted a coordinated operation based upon their initial investigations which resulted in the arrest of Mr. Abdul-Wahab, former Cehief Executive of the National Food And Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO), his wife Faiza Seidu Wuni and James Atieku, the Buffer Stock manager for the Northern Sector who was based in Tamale. The operation also led to the arrest of Emmanuel Arthur, Head of Corporate Affairs of NAFCO. The arrest followed Initial intelligence and assessment by EOCO which suggested that while serving as CEO of Buffer Stock between 2017 and 2024, Mr. Abdul-Wahab Hanan colluded with his wife, Faiza Seidu Wuni, Richard Sam Asante (Head of Finance), Bismark Owusu Boakye (Finance Department), and Emmanuel Arthur (Corporate Affairs Manager) and others to, to create an elaborate criminal enterprise that was used to steal and launder public funds from the Buffer Stock Company. Within the period between 2017 and 2024, Hanan Abdul-Wahab, in concert with Richard Sam-Asante and Bismark Owusu Bokaye, orchestrated the transfer of Seventy-Eight Million Two Hundred And Sixty Nine Thousand, Eighty Four and Four Pesewas and Four Ghana Cedis (GH¢78,269,084.04) from the bank accounts of Buffer Stock Company to a private company linked to Hanan Abdul-Wahab, his wife and staff of buffer stock Company at Republic Bank and ECOBANK. Evidence shows that the funds were instantly retransferred to companies owned by Hanan Abdul-Wahab himself and companies and entities owned and associated with and Hanan and his wife . Similarly Evidence show that between December 2017 and May 2019, Hanan Abdul-Wahab transferred Five Million, Four Hundred And Ninety Five thousand, Seven And Forty Eight Ghana Cedis and Thirty Six Pesewas (GH¢5,495,748.36 ) from Buffer Stock accounts to two bank accounts belonging to Aludiba Enterprise at Republic Bank and ABSA, a company he owns. Aludiba Enterprise is not a registered supplier of Buffer Stock Company. Hanan Abdul-Whab between October 2019 to January 2022 also orchestrated some suppliers to transfer an amount of Eleven Million Nine Hundred And Ninety Eight thousand Ghana Cedis and fourty Eight pesewas (GH¢11,998,830.48) to an entity owned by a staff of buffer stock and later instructed the staff to re-transfer the funds to a company owned and run by Hanan Abdul Wahab and his wife. In July 2022, investigations found that Hanan Abdul Wahab transferred GH¢251,050 from Buffer Stock Accounts to a bank account at Republic Bank belonging to Energy Partners Ltd, a company co-owned by the Hanan Abdul Wahab and Emmanuel Arthur, the Head of Corporate Affairs of Buffer Stock company. Energy Partners is not a service provider for Buffer stock. The evidence gathered so far shows that they run this criminal enterprise under the pretext of supplying food items to schools under the School Feeding Program. Seven entities linked to Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab and his wife were used as vehicles to receive and to launder the proceeds of crime from Buffer Stock. The money laundering took the form of property acquisitions across the country, including real estate and luxury goods using the same entities. The entities in question are as follows: • Alqarni Enterprise • Aludiba Enterprise • Energy Partners Limited • Fa-Hausa Ventures • Fa-Hausa Company Limited and • Aludiba Foundation and • Sawtina Enterprise (owned by a third party connected to the couple) Bank documents obtained by the EOCO reveal that within the period that the suspects operated the criminal enterprise, Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab, his wife and their entities became the largest depositors of Republic Bank. Investigations established that in 2018, Sawtina Enterprise, an entity owned by James Atieku-Apawu applied to become a licensed supplier to the Buffer Stock Company. This application was approved by his boss, Hanan Abdul-Wahab, knowing very well that his approval placed James Tieku-Apawu in a conflict-of-interest situation. Documentary evidence from bank accounts of Buffer Stock revealed that between September 2018 and June 2024 Buffer Stock transferred a total of GH¢78,269,082.04 to Sawtina Enterprise’s bank accounts at Ecobank and Republic Bank respectively. The payments were supposedly to pay for food supplies made by Sawtina Enterprise to schools under the School Feeding Program (SFP). Verified records, including waybills and store receipt vouchers (SRVs) from Buffer Stock, indicated that only GH¢27,389,872.00 out of payments to Sawtina Enterprise were backed by supplies. There is no evidence that the remaining GH¢50,879,210.04 paid to the enterprise was backed by food supplies or any service rendered to Buffer Stock. A review of Sawtina Enterprise’s bank account revealed that the bulk of the payments which Buffer Stock made to Sawtina Enterprise’s bank accounts (about 98%) of the GH¢78,269,082.04 were instantly re-transferred to Alqarni Enterprise, Fa-Hausa Ventures and other entities owned and controlled by or affiliated to Hanan Abdul-Wahab and Faiza Seidu Wuni. Under interrogation, Mr. Atieku-Apawu stated that, although some of the funds received into Sawtina’s Ecobank and Republic Bank accounts were for the few genuine supplies backed by waybills and Store Receipt Vouchers (SRV’s), in most instances no supplies were made but he noticed that Buffer Stock kept making payments to his company, Sawtina Enterprise. He also admitted that other third-party companies which our investigations have established to be Licensed Buying Companies (LBC’s) or suppliers to Buffer Stock also made several payments into Sawtina’s account. He said he neither knew the promoters of these companies nor did his company have any business dealings with them. He had no explanation as to why the millions were transferred into his company’s bank account but observed that those payments, whether from Buffer Stock or from third parties, were made into Sawtina’s account on the instruction of his then boss Hanan Abdul-Wahab. He further explained that whenever such payments were deposited into Sawtina’s account, he was prompted by Hanan to expect the transfer and was later instructed on where to move or re-transfer the funds. In effect, Sawtina became a conduit for Hanan Abdul-Wahab and his wife to steal Buffer Stock funds without easy detection. Transaction analysis of Sawtina Enterprise’s Republic bank account and entities used as vehicles to launder the proceeds of the criminal enterprise established by Hanan and his Wife Faiza corroborated the claims made by Mr. James Tieku-Apawu. For example, a review of some of the re-transfers of the funds paid to Sawtina Enterprise by Buffer Stock revealed the following: As is typical of all investigations conducted by the EOCO, contemporaneous tracing of the proceeds of crime has been undertaken and can confirm that the couple purchased a number of high-end real estate properties from their ill-gotten wealth. The properties are as follows: Five-bedroom house bought from Chain Homes Limited between February 2019 and December 2020 at a cost of $1,625,000. Of this amount, GH¢5,758,165.00 (equivalent to $230,841.00) was paid directly from the accounts of the investigated entities. The balance was paid in cash to Chain Homes by the couple; In July 2020, the couple purchased a 3-bedrom house at Cantonments from Golden Coast Developer Ltd at a cost of $600,000.00 using two of their companies- Fa-Hausa Ventures (owned by the wife) and Fa-Hausa Company Limited (owned jointly by the couple). The land documents are registered in the name of the wife; Between October 2019 and February 2021, the couple purchased plots at Finali’s Airport development site for USD $750,000.00. The total payments were made in cash in the name of Faiza Seidu Wuni. Subsequently, in July 2021, Faiza Seidu Wuni signed a contract with a construction company, Mendanha and Sousa Construction Ltd at a cost of USD$691,650.00 to construct the shell and core of the building. This excludes the cost of architectural designs from Ansara Architecture Pty Ltd based in South Africa. The building sitting on three plots is now estimated to be valued at about USD$2,5000,000.00. The couple purchased 0.32-acre government land from one Anthony Duke Essien, a known government land sales agent named in both the demolition of the Nigerian High Commission and the Sale and demolition of the Bulgarian Consulate. Duke Essian used his sister Antoinette Tsiboe Darko, a staff of Danquah Institute as a front, to purchase from the Ministry of Lands and the Land Commission at a price of GH¢307,200. Duke Essien then instantly sold the land to Hanan Abdul-Wahab and received about GH¢2,567,000.00. The payment came from the criminal proceeds from Buffer Stock through Sawtina Enterprise through Alqarni Enterprise and Hanan himself to Anthony Duke Essien. On the instruction of his brother, Duke Essien, Antoinette then wrote to the Land Commission in March 2020 to instruct them that the lease should be in the name of Hanan Abdul-Wahab. In May 2020, she made a U-turn and wrote to the Lands Commission to withdraw the documents bearing the name of Hanan Abdul-Wahab and now replace it with his wife Faiza Seidu Wuni. The couple developed four units of 4-bedroom apartments on the said land. Property is yet to be valued. Other properties acquired by the couple are as follows: 17-bedroom boutique hotel at Gumani in Tamale in respect of which the couple used Fa-Hausa Company Limited to sign a franchise with Villa Monticello for $250,000.00 in order to hide the hotel under the brand name of villa monticello. 4-bedroom bungalow situated at Dworwulu, Accra valued at GH¢4,142,451.00. Three storey building (Chicken Republic) situate at Estate Junction, Tamale; • Five-bedroom mansion at Kanvili, Dorado Street, Tamale • Three bedroom house, Kpalsi, Tamale • One storey building, No. 10 Selby Gardens, Achimota, Accra • 27 acre plot of land, Estate Junction, Tamale • 29 acre land, Close to Workers College, Tamale We have frozen all these assets and will be taking steps to have them confiscated to the state in the course of the criminal proceedings. Also, in terms of liquid assets, we have frozen a fixed deposit account belonging to Mr. Hannan containing GH¢10,000,000.00 with Republic Bank, Labone Branch, Accra. Additionally we have also frozen several vehicles and over 61 luxury handbags Ladies and Gentlemen: On account of the foregoing, we have decided to charge Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab and his wife, Faiza Seidu Wuni with stealing, conspiracy to steal, wilfully causing financial loss to the state, using public office for profit, obtaining public property by false statements and money laundering. The charges will be filed on Friday, October 24, 2025. Thank you for your attention.
