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Article

19 May 2018

Author:
Emmanuel K. Dogbevi, CENOZO, (Investigative Reporting in West Africa)

Ghana: Dr. Bawuah-Edusei: A former Ambassador, his offshore companies and a $305m oil deal

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Among them are a medical doctor and his partner. It is common knowledge that Dr. Kwame Bawuah-Edusei, a former diplomat, is one of the owners of the company known as E.O. Group that held interests in Ghana’s new found oil fields which it later sold, but it hasn’t been known that he was the owner of another company KG Group. Dr. Bawuah-Edusei is a medical doctor based in the United States of America - he runs the Educe Medical Center in Alexandria, Virginia, and has a Foundation called the Edusei Foundation founded by himself and his wife...He is also the founder of Educe Capital LLC, which was founded in the United States with branches in Europe and Africa. Educe Capital has an interest in bio-medicine, real estate, and agro processing: to help Africa work her way out of poverty through job creation, his Foundation’s website says...In 2006 he was appointed Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States by the John Kufuor Administration. Prior to that there are some records showing that Dr. Bawuah-Edusei had served as Ghana’s Ambassador to Switzerland and Austria as well as the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations. But while serving as Ambassador to the United States and contrary to the Vienna Convention which prohibits diplomats from actively engaging in business outside their home countries, he continued to manage the company known as E.O. Group with his partner George Owusu...A US expert also told...that diplomats cannot have other paying jobs because that is why they are given diplomatic immunity – they are protected because they are expected to only work in their official diplomatic job...The memo also interestingly sets out how the $305 million that E. O. Group made from selling its share to Tullow was shared...Kosmos Energy, in a filing with the Securities and Exchanges Commission in the US indicated that E.O. Group owed it a sum of $61.7 million in development costs. At that time EO had missed the payment schedule period of December 2010. According to Kosmos Energy, the money for Development Costs on the oil fields was paid on behalf of EO. Kosmos Energy indicated that under what is termed as the EO Participation Agreement, it was entitled to reimbursement for the development capital expenditures paid for the EO Group’s 3.5 per cent share of costs. It is not clear if EO paid the debt as a Kosmos Energy official in Ghana who was contacted was unaware of the matter saying, “that matter wasn’t on my desk.” Kosmos Energy’s Houston, Texas offices have also not responded to email enquiries.

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