A founding member of the opposition New Patriotic Party, Dr. Kwame Safo-Adu is dead.

He passed away on Friday at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra at the age of 81 after a short illness.

He was a former Minister of Agriculture in the Busia regime and later aspired for the party's presidential aspirant in 1992, 1996.

The late physician and industrialist has a chequered political and business history, having been arrested and detained for about three weeks during the PNDC days in October 1990 at the James Fort Prison for three weeks.

He was alleged to have sabotaged the economy and had been jailed on 13 charges of misapplication of public property and committing acts with intent to sabotage the economy of Ghana.

He ran a successful pharmaceutical firm, Industrial Chemical Laboratories (ICL), and his factory was seized by a horde of men. Others detained alongside the physician/businessman were Adrews Kumi, a senior bank official and Frank Kwaku Bruce, a senior Ministry of Health official.

Hon Kwamena Bartels who was a co-director of the company was also arrested in mid-1990 and charged based on a report by the National Investigations Committees, which was responsible for initiating prosecutions before the public tribunals.

The tribunal, chaired by Kweku Boakye-Danquah, ruled that the loans he secured could not be regarded in law as public property, adding that the charges were misconceived and devoid of any criminality. The charges, he explained, arose out of civil contracts arising from agreements between his company and the state-owned National Investment Bank.

The prosecuting authorities, following the acquittals of Dr Kwame Safo-Adu, Kwamena Bartels and Andrews Kumi Wontumi, filed an appeal.