Embassy Scandal: Alima Mahama Disputes Ablakwa’s $4.8M Claim Against Fred Kwarteng

Former Ghanaian Ambassador to the United States, Hajia Alima Mahama, has dismissed as inaccurate a claim made by North Tongu MP and Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, alleging that Fred Kwarteng earned $4.8 million annually through illegal dealings at the Ghana Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Speaking in an interview on TV3 on June 23, 2025, Hajia Mahama challenged the figures presented by Ablakwa, insisting they do not reflect the actual operations of GTC, the courier company operated by Kwarteng under a valid contract with the embassy.

She argued that GTC’s role was strictly to provide courier services for passport and visa applications—services, she emphasized, the Ghanaian government was not directly involved in.

“I really don’t know where he got those figures from. It simply can’t be true. How is Ghana losing anything when we don’t even run the courier operations ourselves? We hired GTC to handle them,” she said.

According to her, Fred Kwarteng negotiated fixed-rate deals with courier service providers and charged clients $29.75 per delivery—regardless of whether the package contained one or multiple passports. She added that the embassy processes fewer than 2,000 passports per quarter, making Ablakwa’s financial claims exaggerated.

She further clarified that the embassy’s annual revenue from visa services falls short of $4 million, contradicting the scale of earnings Ablakwa suggested.

Meanwhile, Ablakwa, in his June 18 address to Parliament, stated that internal investigations had uncovered that Kwarteng’s company dispatched an average of 250 passport and visa applications daily, totaling roughly 62,500 annually. Based on this, Ablakwa estimated that GTC earned at least $1.8 million per year from courier charges alone—and potentially up to $4.8 million when factoring in additional service fees ranging from $60 to $100 for form-filling support.

He described the operation as an “unlawful enterprise” and a significant financial loss to the state.

The matter remains under parliamentary scrutiny as the debate over the alleged financial misconduct continues.