The Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kyerematen, has responded to the query from the Presidency about his involvement in the controversial $100,000 charged expatriates to enable sit close to the President at an awards ceremony.

In a statement earlier released by the Presidency, it stated that the officials at the Trade Ministry did no wrong in commercialising the Presidential Table at the recent Ghana Expatriate Business Awards (GEBA).

“The facts, as reported to the president, do not disclose any wrongdoing on the part of the minister of any government official.”

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“The President has therefore asked the minister to ,” it added.

The Minority had accused the Ministry of Trade and Industry of charging expatriates between 25,000 and 100,000 dollars, to offer them seats close to the President at the event.

According to them, the fees charged at the Ghana Expatriate Business Awards were not the kind of fees approved by Parliament, and that the monies were also not accounted for in the Internally Generated Funds (IGF) of the Ministry’s accounts.

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Alan Kyrematen’s outfit published the response on Thursday, revealing that an amount of GHȻ 2,667, 215.00 was raised against an expenditure of GHȻ 2, 367, 426.06.

He also denied that monies were collected to allow people sit by the President.

“The organisers of the event were specifically instructed not to collect any monies to place persons/organizations on the Presidential High table for the event, and they provided assurance that this will not happen. It is worth noting that all the business executives who were seated at the Presidential High table, who incidentally are Chief Executives of the top tier corporate entities in Ghana already have direct access to the President and do not need to pay monies to interact with him.”

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