Ghanaian politician and Member of Parliament for North Tongu Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has continued with his campaign to expose the corruption that clothes the National Cathedral project.
In what he titled “Episode 2 of the American Edition”, the lawmaker made deep revelation surrounding the project. He revealed that “the March 2021 incorporation of the National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum Foundation, Inc in Washington, D.C. was criminally executed through IDENTITY THEFT”.
Apart from that the lawmaker who has been a lead crusader against the corruption surrounding the project punched deep holes into the response by the National Cathedral Secretariat to his earlier release which exposed some irregularities in the project’s incorporation in the United States.
In the latest release, Ablakwa noted that the incorporation of the National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum Foundation, Inc in Washington, D.C. was done using the details of a man who died in 2014.
According to him, “the Social Security Number of: 863-85-9197 used to generate the Cathedral’s Employer ID Number belongs to one Jose Salgado”.
“Deeper investigations and impregnable gold-standard validation which include a report from police database,” according to Ablakwa, “has established that 31 year-old Jose Salgado who has many aliases including Jose Luis Delapaz, Jose Isabel Salgado, Jose Luis Paz and Jose L De was born in March 1983 and died on September 17, 2014”.
Read Okudzeto Ablakwa’s full post as seen on Facebook.
Episode 2 of American Edition – Okudzeto Ablakwa
As promised, here we go with Episode 2 of the American Edition of “National” Cathedral Scandals which is bound to hit many Ghanaians like artillery bombardment.
Permit me, however, to briefly respond to the rather hollow, evasive and disingenuous May 2, 2023 press release from the “National” Cathedral Secretariat in reaction to the grave matters I raised in Episode 1 of the American Edition:
1. The Secretariat could not refute the incontrovertible fact that the Washington DC address published on its website which they now claim to be a “holding place” is a deceptive and deliberately misleading claim. Neither the incorporated National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum Foundation, Inc or their agent have an office at the said address. This is the reason the Secretariat is unable to provide the specific office and floor of the 12-storey apartment which serves as their so-called holding place.
2. The Secretariat claims the current board of the US incorporated National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum Foundation, Inc which leaves out all the eminent clergy on the Board of Trustees in Ghana is only an “interim board set up by the Secretariat and their US consultant, for registration purposes.” This is yet another fat false claim as all official documents prove otherwise. Indeed there’s nothing interim about the current arrangement which has persisted for more than two years.
It is also patently false that all the Board has been doing is registration. I have unassailable evidence that the board has done far more than that including receiving massive donations. (More evidential details of this in subsequent episodes).
3. The Secretariat also creates the firm impression that only one incorporation has been carried out in the US and that it happened before the Attorney General’s opinion dated January 6, 2022. Clearly, the Secretariat was hoping that I will not be aware of another incorporation which was carried out long after the Attorney General’s advice.
I can now reveal in the spirit of truth and accountability that on the 2nd of September, 2022, an additional application was made for another National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum Foundation, Inc to be incorporated in Illinois. This application was certified and approved on October 2, 2022. Interestingly, the articles of incorporation in my possession make Vernon Darko the President and Director, Eric Okyere Darko a Secretary and Director and Paul Opoku-Mensah a Director.
4. It was the Secretariat which informed Parliament last year that Cary Lee Summers’s Nehemiah Group has been handed out US$6million or the equivalent of GHS28.2million at the time it was paid; that is when we requested expenditure breakdown of the unconstitutional withdrawals.
The new figure of less than US$1million lacks both exactitude and credibility. In any case, we insist that Cary Lee Summers must refund the Ghanaian people’s money and the Secretariat must now account for the shortfall of more than US$5million.
5. It is not lost on Ghanaians that the Secretariat cleverly avoided the incredible discovery of how Cary Lee Summers’s Nehemiah Group address in Springfield, Missouri metamorphosed into a dilapidated warehouse with the inscription Churchill Coffee Company (Warehouse Division). They can run but they can’t hide.
6. The confused attempt to explain away the damning finding of Dr. Paul Opoku-Mensah and Carry Lee Summers sharing the same address by claiming it was just to incorporate another strange entity known as the “National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum of Africa Foundation” must definitely be reserved for the marines.
Now let’s move on to the much anticipated Episode 2:
Identity theft is considered a very serious federal crime in the United States of America.
The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 (ITADA), which amended Title 18 of the United States Code (18 U.S.C. § 1028) to include specific provisions related to identity theft is a really dreaded law.
Many have been convicted for the crime of identity theft in cases where they have wrongfully acquired another person’s Personal Identifying Information for fraud or deception for economic gain.
Personal Identifying Information include: Social Security Numbers, Credit Card Information, Driver’s License Numbers, Bank Account and PINs and Birth or Death Certificates.
Under ITADA, it is a federal crime to knowingly transfer or use, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or a felony under any applicable state or local law.
Only last week, a woman from Trinidad and Tobago was sentenced in Miami to a combined period of some 5 years for her role in the submission of fraudulent loan applications seeking more than $9.2 million in forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. (Full story here)
See also a March 2023 identity theft incident here
It has now been established by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a consumer protection agency in the US that identity theft reports in 2020 were more than triple the number from 2018. Cases reached 1,387,615 in 2020; 650,523 in 2019; and 444,344 in 2018. Its 2022 data is still high at 1.1million reports of identity theft. This has been largely due to nefarious schemes to lay hands on the trillions of dollars the US government made available for COVID-19 relief.
Painstaking and unimpeachable investigations shockingly reveal that the March 2021 incorporation of the National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum Foundation, Inc in Washington, D.C. was criminally executed through IDENTITY THEFT.
By an intercepted IRS tax exempt letter dated December 13, 2021 — I can confirm that the Employer ID Number for the National Cathedral of Ghana and Bible Museum Foundation, Inc is: 86-3859197. (See letter attached).
Further irrefutable forensic investigations reveal that the Social Security Number of: 863-85-9197 used to generate the Cathedral’s Employer ID Number belongs to one Jose Salgado. (See evidence attached).
Deeper investigations and impregnable gold-standard validation which include a report from police database has established that 31 year-old Jose Salgado who has many aliases including Jose Luis Delapaz, Jose Isabel Salgado, Jose Luis Paz and Jose L De was born in March 1983 and died on September 17, 2014. (See extract attached).
It has therefore emerged beyond any scintilla of doubt that the Social Security Number of a deceased young male Hispanic who died 9 years ago was fraudulently used to incorporate Ghana’s national cathedral in Washington, D.C.
Clearly, it seems those responsible for this gross international embarrassment knew Jose Salgado’s death was yet to be formally reported to all the relevant US authorities and decided to take dubious but costly advantage.
Unfortunately for Dr. Vernon Darko and Eric Okyere Darko, the statement issued by the National Cathedral Secretariat dated May 2, 2023 appears to implicate them in this latest super explosive scandal when Dr. Paul Opoku-Mensah wrote: “One of the requirements for the incorporation is to have a US social security number. The two alleged faceless individuals provided the needed legal documentation to enable the registration to be completed.”
It’s purely incredulous that these grave crimes would be associated to the building of the Lord’s Temple.
Regardless of the sharp rise in Identity Theft in the US, it is most unimaginable and absolutely sacrilegious that the incorporation of God’s Temple would be so desecrated.
At the very least, the criminal masterminds should have considered the reputations of the genuine eminent priests who accepted government’s invitation to serve as Board of Trustees.
As the international disgrace reaches crescendo, one really wonders what else President Akufo-Addo is waiting for to dissolve the Board of Trustees, close down the secretariat, abrogate the contract and institute a national inquiry into this deplorable affair.
SOA Oversight shall be back next week with Episode 3.
For God and Country.
Ghana First 
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