A US businessman claims he has the magic numbers that can unlock several hundreds of billions of dollars locked up in a Swiss account belonging to Ghana.

The 60-year-old who has for the past seven years been speaking about the cash said all he needs to ‘assist’ Ghana retrieve its fortune is an authorisation from the sitting president, appointed as the sole trustee of the account.

He alleges the money was lodged in the account in 1959 by Ghana’s first President Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and has since not been accessed.

But Mr Frazier claims he has the security code and password needed to recover the hidden treasure in excess of 450 billion dollars. He presents the code as 00065, the passport number of the Dr Nkrumah.

The figure is equivalent to 150 times Ghana’s international reserves and 28 times the country’s GDP as of September 2008.

Successive governments have failed to access the fortune, generating some scepticism about its existence.

However, a group of young men who believe Mr Frazier’s story told Joy News on Tuesday that their independent research had established the existence of the money.

They alleged that their conviction had been confirmed by two separate investigations of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and National Security.

A full scale investigation is said to have been completed in February 2005 on the revelation, sponsored by National Security.

According to the business tycoon, he is only pursuing this agenda to ensure that Ghana does not borrow to fix its problems.

“I think the people have heard the thing I have been saying all the time that Ghana has money, she doesn’t have to be broke and borrowing; all she has to do is to access her money in a correct way,” Mr. Frazier told Joy News.

The Finance Minister in an earlier interview with Joy News confirmed that there was such an amount in an account belonging to the state.

He explained that previous attempts to recover the money had failed because “the right information” was not available.

“The fact is God has allowed the shackles, the scales to fall off their eyes; they see that the thing that I have been saying is not a laughing matter,” Mr Frazier said.

For now Ghana may be on its way to discovering its biggest “corporate mine.”

All it takes, according to Mr Frazier’s prescription, is the authorisation by the sole trustee to the account, the presence of the sole beneficiary who represents the people of Ghana, a national security operative, and a journalist who would report what [he] saw in Switzerland.

And if Mr Frazier must be rewarded for this revelation he advocates “some small thing” that he and the President could work out.

Listen to Mr Frazier speak to Joy News


Story by Fiifi Koomson