Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa is the Minister of Foreign Affairs

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has disclosed that he has nullified an agreement between Fred Kwarteng, a local IT staff member dismissed over alleged corrupt practices, and a top official at the Ghanaian Embassy in Washington DC.

Explaining the reason for nullifying the agreement, Ablakwa stated that the 2023 agreement was discovered to be unauthorised and illegal, and as such, the arrangement will no longer be honored.

According to him, he will provide an update in the coming days in Parliament on the progress made regarding the sanctions taken against implicated staff at the embassy, including frozen accounts, among other measures.

“It is worth announcing that a recently discovered 2023 unauthorized, opaque and illegal agreement between Fred Kwarteng and a top official at the Washington Embassy has been declared a nullity and will no longer be respected (more on this plus frozen accounts and other remedial actions will be presented in greater detail when I address Parliament next week),” he posted on Facebook on Friday, May 30, 2025.

Ablakwa, who is also the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, further clarified that no new appointments or recruitments have been made to fill vacant positions at the embassy, refuting claims that a new group of party-affiliated individuals is being hired for the jobs.

“Contrary to false and baseless claims, there have been no new recruitments to replace lost jobs in our Washington embassy — we have an adequate stock of distinguished and astute diplomats to lead ongoing reforms — this patriotic consequential reset agenda aimed at restoring the image of our diplomatic missions abroad cannot be reduced to “jobs for the boys”, he added.

Ablakwa’s update comes as the embassy reopens following its temporary closure on Monday, May 26, 2025, amid a purported corruption scandal involving the embassy’s visa department.

A local IT worker is alleged to have transferred Embassy monies into a personal account, Minister Ablakwa disclosed in a Facebook post.

This link redirected applicants for visa and passport services to his private company, Ghana Travel Consultants (GTC), where unapproved fees ranging from $29.75 to $60 were charged and deposited into his personal account. Investigations suggest this scheme operated undetected for at least five years.

In response to the scandal, all Foreign Affairs Ministry staff posted to the Washington D.C. embassy were recalled to Accra.

The embassy's IT department was dissolved, and all locally recruited staff were suspended pending further investigation.

Read his post below:

MAG/MA

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