Assets and accounts of the former Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Stephen Opuni, have been frozen, 3News can authoritatively report.
The freeze is in line with an ongoing investigations into his tenure by the Economic and Organised Crime Office. He is being investigated for corruption and wrongful acquisition of some properties, deep throat sources told 3News Tuesday.
The Ministry of Agriculture, which has an oversight responsibility over COCOBOD, has been tight-lipped on the issue.
Dr Opuni who was appointed CEO of COCOBOD by former president, John Mahama in November 2013, had his administration fraught with allegations of corruption, which triggered calls for his dismissal.
Prior to his dismissal by President Akufo-Addo on January 13, 2017, a number of people and labour unions, as well as some workers of the COCOBOD called for his resignation over his leadership style and acts of corruption which they claimed, was affecting the cocoa sector.
A day after he was kicked out of office, General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, (ICU) Solomon Kotei, called for a human resource auditing at COCOBOD.
He claimed many people have been working at COCOBOD without appointment letters for years.
“He has really caused great harm to the human resource at COCOBOD. People are working without appointment letters while others have appointment letters without applying. We are strongly calling for the human resource audit at the COCOBOD,” Solomon kotei demanded.
But the Cocoa Industry Workers Union on January 18 rejected calls for investigations into the tenure of office of Dr Opuni and declared strong support for him for what it said has been the transformation of the cocoa industry to meet growing demands during his tenure.
According to the union, Dr Opuni facilitated increases in sale of cocoa beans on the international market, adding the cocoa syndicated loans secured under Dr. Opuni’s administration improved the operations of COCOBOD.
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