Government Communications Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu has clarified that assets worth GHC1.5 billion have been frozen under the Mahama administration’s flagship anti-corruption initiative, Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL), but stressed that frozen assets cannot legally be transferred to the state until prosecutions are completed and convictions secured.
Kwakye Ofosu made the clarification on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, while contributing to parliamentary debate on the State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered by President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday. He also directly rejected claims that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) had recovered only GHC600 million under ORAL, explaining that the two figures represent entirely separate streams of work.
According to the minister, the GHC600 million figure being widely cited in public commentary relates to recoveries made by EOCO through its routine anti-corruption and financial crime operations, conducted independently of the ORAL initiative. He said conflating the two had created a misleading impression of ORAL’s actual reach. The GHC1.5 billion in frozen assets, he insisted, sits within the ORAL pipeline and remains subject to ongoing investigations and pending legal proceedings.
Kwakye Ofosu stressed that asset recovery in Ghana is a legal process governed by court orders and prosecutorial outcomes, and that government has no power to permanently confiscate or redirect assets simply because they have been frozen. Final forfeiture to the state requires the full completion of criminal proceedings and the securing of convictions. He reaffirmed that the administration remains committed to pursuing every case to its logical legal conclusion to ensure full accountability for alleged misappropriation of public funds.
The clarification comes amid growing scrutiny of ORAL’s pace and outputs. Pressure on the government to show tangible results has been building, with Walewale Member of Parliament Dr. Tiah Abdul-Kabiru Mahama publicly warning that anything short of the US$21 billion recovery figure identified by the ORAL Preparatory Committee would constitute a failure of the initiative. President Mahama notably made no direct reference to ORAL in his 2026 SONA, a departure from his 2025 address which had cited early arrests and investigations as evidence of progress.
ORAL was launched by the Mahama administration following the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) return to power in January 2025, with a mandate to trace, freeze, and recover state assets allegedly lost through corruption, financial mismanagement, and illicit enrichment under the previous government. The initiative operates through collaboration between EOCO, the Office of the Attorney General, and other state investigative bodies.
