A new witness statement has revealed that Solomon Asamoah, the former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), and Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, the former Board Chair, approved a $2 million payment without the knowledge or approval of the GIIF board.
According to the witness, an officer of the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng, Solomon Asamoah, together with Prof. Ameyaw Akumfi, authorised a payment of $2 million to Africa Investor Holdings Limited (AIHL) without the required formal approval of the board.
A testimony from the witness said the unauthorised transaction payment, made in 2019, was part of a failed attempt to develop a Sky Train project in Accra.
According to Koranteng, documents reviewed upon taking office revealed that while the GIIF board had initially given “in-principle” support for the Sky Train project, no final investment decision was formally approved.
Despite this, GIIF’s previous leadership—including the then-CEO and board chair—proceeded to transfer $2 million to AIHL, a Mauritius-registered entity set up to execute the ambitious $2.6 billion infrastructure project.
Koranteng emphasised that an internal due diligence report—led by GIIF’s former Chief Investment Officer—flagged significant concerns about the deal. These findings raise further questions about the transparency and governance of the project’s funding process.
The witness statement reads, “The payment of USD2 million was executed without board approval, and no effort was made to recover the funds despite a breach in the condition precedent.”
The $2 million payment, which was made to a private entity as part of a concession agreement with the Ghanaian government, was initially intended to support feasibility studies and early-stage planning for the urban monorail system, a flagship transport initiative under the previous administration.
The 2021 Auditor General’s report has revealed that the government spent some $2 million on the SkyTrain project.
The Auditor General said that after an assessment of the GIIF risk management, it revealed that the policy is still in the draft stage.
The report said the feasibility studies, which will better inform the project economics and required approvals from the Cabinet of Ghana and the Parliament of Ghana, are still not conclusive.
Africa Investor Holdings Limited incorporated a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in 2018 in Mauritius for the purposes of establishing Ghana Sky Train Limited to develop the Accra Sky Train Project through a concession on design, build, finance, and operate arrangement.
In 2019, the government of Ghana and the Ai) Sky Train Consortium of South Africa signed the much-anticipated Accra Sky Train project, which is a fully automated, highly efficient, and extremely cost-effective public mass transit system that will use air propulsion technology to drive lightweight, high-passenger-volume vehicles.
However, the project has yet to materialise, raising questions about the use and accountability of public funds.
