Abuakwa South Member of Parliament (MP), Dr. Kingsley Agyemang, allegedly bribed journalists with scholarships to conduct a smear campaign against Atta Akyea in the NPP Parliamentary primary.
Abuakwa South Member of Parliament (MP), Dr. Kingsley Agyemang, allegedly bribed journalists with scholarships to conduct a smear campaign against Atta Akyea in the NPP Parliamentary primary.
The dirty files on the immediate past Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, and the current Member of Parliament (MP) for Abuakwa South Constituency in the Eastern region, Dr. Kingsley Agyemang, keep washing ashore from the deep recesses of what is increasingly shaping up to be a racketeering ring that he ran at the Scholarship Secretariat while in charge.
Aside from the recent revelations that Dr. Agyemang sold scholarships for a whopping GBP10,000 apiece to Ghanaian students in the UK, lavished scholarships on already privileged appointees in the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led government and their cronies, the latest allegation is that he bribed his way to Parliament with – you guessed it – scholarships.
This new allegation against Dr. Agyemang came to light courtesy of popular anti-corruption crusader and rule of law champion, Lawyer Martin Kpebu.
Lawyer Kpebu, who is currently on a mission to have Special Prosecutor (SP), Mr. Kissi Agyebeng, removed from office, is also doing so while brandishing a raft of corruption allegations.
One of these allegations concerns Kissi Agyebeng’s alleged intervention in a move by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to arrest the former Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat (Dr. Agyemang) over a dirty little secret souped in bribery.
According to Mr. Kpebu, Dr. Kingsley Agyemang bribed a journalist with a promise to lavish him with two scholarships, in exchange for the journalist doing a hatchet job for him so he could win the Abuakwa South Parliamentary primary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.
The Abuakwa South is a wholly safe seat for the NPP, and so winning the primary basically amounts to a red carpet into parliament. However, Dr. Kingsley Agyemang, who was eyeing the seat while serving as Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, knew that Lawyer Samuel Atta Akyea, the then sitting MP, was a tough competition.
To make a way, Dr. Agyemang came up with the devious old dirty trick of a smear campaign and character assassination. But in the equation, he had to hide in the shadows as puppet master and remote-control the downfall of Atta Akyea. Dr. Agyemang, therefore, hired a dirty journalist for the job.
Lawyer Kpebu, speaking on Accra-based TV3, didn’t name the journalist, but the rogue journo was cheap, apparently – the price tag on his conscience was just two scholarships for master’s programmes in universities abroad.
Deal settled, the dirty journo went to work – he conjured beautiful lies and hung them around the neck of Atta Akyea like rotten garlands. It worked, and Atta Akyea chickened out of the primary.
In fact, the way Atta Akyea chickened out of the primary was so embarrassing that in one of the communities in the Constituency, constituents hooted at their MP during a campaign tour stopover.
It is not clear what happened subsequently, but later it appears that somebody reported Dr. Kingsley Agyemang to the Special Prosecutor over his corrupt streak at the Scholarship Secretariat.
As a result, the journalist had to give a statement, and it was in his statement that he revealed that Dr. Agyemang had sweetened him with a promised bribe of two scholarships but failed to deliver on his side of the bargain.
According to Lawyer Martin Kpebu, an Officer at the OSP moved in to arrest Dr. Kingsley Agyemang over the case, but Kissi Agyebeng stepped in and foiled the arrest, warning that the former Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat is his friend.
Lawyer Kpebu is said to be lacing his boots for a showdown with SP, against whom he says he is penning a detailed petition for impeachment.
Back to Agyemang – the allegation against him certainly opens a brand new window into the alleged nefarious activities of the Abuakwa South NPP MP.
However, it is to be noted that it adds to a tall list of corruption allegations that is piling up on the name of Mr. Agyemang.
It would be recalled that recently, Ghana’s High Commissioner to the UK, Mrs. Sabah Zita Benson, revealed that Dr. Kingsley Agyemang left a debt of GBP32million in respect of Ghanaian students on scholarships in the UK alone.
In a meeting with some stranded Ghanaian students in the UK who find themselves in the predicament because their scholarship fees were not honored by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government, H.E. Zita Benson questions what Agyemang did with the monies that his office received while he was Registrar.
“It’s unfortunate that the scholarship secretariat, under the former registrar, Kingsley Agyemang, I don’t know why he is still walking; and I am looking into the camera and saying this, I don’t know why Kingsley Agyemang is walking around a free man. Because of the mess he has created for us as a Mission, it’s not just us, but for us (as a country), the mess is huge.
The London Mission owes universities in the UK here, 32million pounds. That’s way above the budget that even next year, the scholarship secretariat has been awarded (Ghc250million, about 16.4million pounds). That cannot even pay the 32million pounds we owe in London alone, let alone allow other students to come in or pay the fees of other students outside of the UK,” she lamented
H.E. Zita Benson continued, “So my question is, Dr. Agyemang knew that he did not have the budget to pay these fees, but he was issuing award letters. Why would he do that?”
She said some of the students have even revealed to her that Kingsley Agyemang sold the scholarships to them for GBP10,000 apiece.
“For 2021, the entire UK owed GBP133,000. Dr. Kinsgley, who was the Registrar, was dishing out award letters like ebro ne nkatie. And what I have heard from some of the students is that some of these award letters were even being sold for as much as GBP10,000.
In 2022/2023, we owed GBP2.3million, then in 2024, he piled the debt to GBP18million, and this man was still issuing award letters. What did he do with that money? In 2021, we owed GBP133,000, in 2022, GBP18million, then in 2023/2024, the debt grew to GBP35million. So what did he do with all that money?
Since we came to power, we have paid off at least GBP3million this year, and this was not even in our budget.”
Dr. Agyemang has since clapped back at H.E. Zita Benson, claiming he rather disburdened the scholarship secretariat of the huge debt that the first Mahama government left behind.
At a press conference on Thursday, December 4, 2025, in Accra, Dr. Agyemang said the Secretariat’s financial challenges were “legacy liabilities”, not fiscal irresponsibility on his part.
He argued that when the Akufo-Addo administration assumed office in 2017, the first John Mahama administration had already accumulated arrears of GH₵230 million, approximately $57 million, which the then NPP administration cleared to prevent Ghanaian students abroad from being expelled over unpaid fees.
H.E. Zita Benson has, however, said that investigations are going on and that at the end of the day, whoever is culpable will face justice.
