Panama Papers: Would many more Ghana stories appear in next major release of details?
Since the release of the biggest leak in the history of journalism which has become known as the Panama Papers, only about three of the names and businesses in the documents have been linked to Ghana.
The sons of former Ghana President, John Kufour, and former UN secretary General Kofi Annan, have appeared in the leaks.
A former group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Funsho Kupolokun, 69 is shown to have shares in the Kempinski Hotel in Accra.
The trove of 11.5 million leaked internal documents, about 2.6TB of data, from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, shows how hundreds of thousands of people are using anonymous shell companies across the world to hide their money.
The release of the first set of documents has produced some major casualties. The Prime Minister of Iceland resigned when the documents showed that he and the wife ran a secret company. He was accused of failing to make his joint ownership of the company public.
A member of FIFA’s ethics committee, Juan Pedro Damiani resigned when the documents show alleged links between him and his compatriot Eugenio Figueredo, the former Fifa vice-president who was arrested last year on corruption charges by the United States Department of Justice.
UK Prime Minister, David Cameron has come under criticisms since the leaked papers showed he had interest in his late father’s offshore investment fund.
The investigation involving about 370 journalists from more than 100 media organizations are continuing to dig into the and some more details in the files are due to be released in May.
In an email correspondence, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the main organization that is coordinating the release and sharing of the documents, said it will release in early May the names of the more than 214,000 offshore entities incorporated by Mossack Fonseca and the people connected to them.
Many more Ghana stories are likely to be revealed.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi