Shatta Wale allegedly bagged ¢2Million for Made In Ghana ambassadorial deal

Ghanaian dancehall sensation, Shatta Wale has been reported to have allegedly bagged a whooping ¢2 million for serving as a brand ambassador for Made In Ghana product.

Reports indicated that the large sum of money was paid by the Ghana Exim Bank, a government trade facilitation institution.

The alleged payment came to light at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sitting on Wednesday, September 9, 2020, when the Member of Parliament for Kumbungu Constituency quizzed about the payment to the artist captured in the 2017 Auditor General’s report.

Exim Bank made no such Payment to Shatta Wale

However, in response to the query, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Bank, Kwame Adu-Darkwa said the bank had not made any of such transactions with the artist adding that they only sought the services of a media consultant in promoting their Made In Ghana.

“As at now, what we have done from the corporate affairs perspective is to engage a media consultant to help us promote Made In Ghana. For the consultant whether he is choosing music, football or rugby that is a strategy that the consultant would be using but in terms of Exim Bank what we have done is to promote our own Made In Ghana,” he said

“Honorable Chairman, I can confirm that as Deputy CEO Finance of Exim Bank, I have not signed or not seen a cheque signed of ¢2 million to any artist that you might have mentioned,” Mr. Adu-Darkwa added.

The Chairperson, James Klutse Avedzi said the bank would be called back for further probe into the allegations.

James Klutse Avedzi, the Chairperson of Public Accounts Committee (PAC)

Ghanaians Deserve Full Disclosure of the Made in Ghana Ambassador deal

Speaking on the sideline of the committee sitting with CitiTV, Mr. Ras Mubarak said Ghanaians deserve full disclosure of the deal.

He was of the opinion that ¢2 million payment to one person was not a judicious use of public funds at this particular point in time.

“These are public funds and in spending the public fund there has to be accountability to the good people of Ghana through their representatives in parliament and it is fair that we get to know the basis, the criteria if Ghana Exim has outsourced some work to somebody it is important that we have full disclosure of who got what”.

I mentioned GHC ¢2 million that went to Shatta Wale and indeed as you may have heard from the Deputy CEO, they according to them wouldn’t know who the vendor selected that they don’t have the criteria for selection and this is not to say that we have problem with Shatta Wale getting some amount of money from Exim to do whatever work Exim gave him but the Ghanaian public deserves to know how much went out, who got it” he added.