August 2018

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 31 August, 2018.   You can never deny free speech to the Ga man or woman. If you try, you will probably hear about your mother. On Wednesday evening, I went through La Maamli, in the company of my two sons. One of my favourite haunts is the La Kpaa Tsoɛ Shishi, the sacred foliage grove offices of the chief priest. The occasion was the Hɔmɔwɔ Shɔ, that is, Hɔmɔwɔ Wednesday. It is the day appointed for the male and female elements of the deity to embrace at exactly midday thus symbolising that the fasting and abstinence of the people,Read More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 29 August, 2018.   You cannot hold a man against his views; release Alban Bagbin – and let him go! ‘What I said was that certain wrong decisions were made in placing or assigning some government appointees,’ Alban Bagbin, second deputy speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, read from his prepared speech Tuesday in reaction to the latest media craze in Ghana. He continued, ‘This wrong placement cost the NDC some votes’. Some media houses on Tuesday reported that Alban Bagbin ‘took responsibility’ for his earlier speech on a presidential primary campaign in the Volta Region earlier this month which has gotRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 27 August, 2018.   We all know living in Ghana is tough. Now when was the last time you tried leaving Ghana, starting from renewing your passport? Last week I tried renewing my passport by buying an online application form. I’d never heard of an online passport application form until I got into the Osu Oxford Street Ecobank where the teller told me hard copies were not available. He said the online form works just the same. I believed him. I started the online process on Friday through to Sunday midday. Then I gave up. It’s far easier to wakeRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 24 August, 2018.   Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) has been born in and with scandal. Dr Ernest Addison, the governor of the Bank of Ghana (BOG) when he announced the establishment of Consolidated Bank Ghana on 1st August stated, ‘All deposits of the five banks are safe and have been transferred to the Consolidated Bank’. Since then some members of Parliament have asked a few serious questions about the bank. Let us paraphrase some of them and add a few of our own. What is the status of Consolidated Bank Ghana- a government entity or private enterprise? On what authorityRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 22 August, 2018.   Has eight billion Cedis [US$1.7bn; €1.5bn] been thrown at corrupt bank officials in an attempt to salvage years of known deliberate falsehood by auditors and accountants? In the US – on Tuesday, investigations into the activities of Trump’s associates bordering on the 2016 elections have so far led to convictions of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman and Michael Cohen, his former legal adviser. How does this concern anybody in Ghana? Well, both the NPP and NDC, tongue in cheek openly speculate that the NPP is aligned to the Republican elephant of the US, and theRead More →

SEARCHLIGHT ON THE BANKING SCANDAL- PART 5   By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 20 August, 2018.     We have been asking persons and institutions involved in the Ghana banking scandal to come out voluntarily to explain their respective roles and seek public understanding. So far just about Prince Kofi Amoabeng of UT Bank, Pastor Mensa Otabil of Capital Bank and KPMG have made statements. That is good. Is everybody else quiet because their legal advisers are telling them to keep quiet and hope the scandal passes off quietly? However, for discerning minds and independent thinkers there are a lot of questions that will simplyRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra-17 August, 2018.   Today, Joseph Henry Mensah, statesman and politician was laid to rest in Accra. JH Mensah, was the stalwart Ghanaian economist who helped Kwame Nkrumah to implement his Seven Year Development Plan. He also served as finance minister in the Busia administration. We at Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited have a few vivid recollections of his life. In JH Mensah v Attorney-General, found in the Supreme Court Ghana Law Report of 1996-97, the plaintiff had gone to court as minority leader to compel ministers nominated by President Rawlings to undergo vetting by Parliament. He based his argument onRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 15 August, 2018.   When our soft spoken and taciturn current finance minister – Ken Ofori-Atta says, “I think as a nation, we are really soft about enforcement of laws and hopefully what we are going to do in the banking sector, everybody will begin to realize that those periods are gone, and if I am going to have to spend 5.6 billion [Cedis; US$1.2billion] to bail out the banking system because I have to protect depositors, the question is not one of a banking failure. I need to be able to tell you that that managing director or thatRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 13 August, 2018.   ‘KPMG gave a bank in South Africa a clean report only for the bank to collapse after four months. Where is IRS and GRA. We don’t even seem to talk about them. I doubt if EOCO [Economic and Organised Crimes Office] has the capacity to investigate this matter.’ – EdgaWiredu, speaking on Unique FM 95.7MHz, Accra, via telephone at 9:50am, on Monday 13 August, 2018.   ‘What about Ernst and Young? When Enron and Worldcom collapsed, they [Ernst and Young] were fined and then they made an appeal. [On external auditors’ reports prepared for banks whichRead More →

HALAL! Where do you get your meat from?   By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 12 August, 2018.   The question itself is halal! I’d been thinking of this for a long time. But hey, here in Ghana, a lot of people act big and you may be deceived into thinking they know what they’re doing. But I’m beginning to discover the Ghanaian. So on Saturday evening, I hit the streets in my hood with this gusto question- ‘Where do you get your meat from? One of my grandmothers, Auntie Sophia, whose son- my uncle- who works with the vet office, had told her never toRead More →