Isaac Ato Mensah (Page 26)

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 →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 11 August, 2018.   The history of public relations offers many exciting case studies. When Michael Jackson was looking to make it really big, he went, together with his management team, to Coca Cola. They literally begged to be hired at any price to advertise for Coca Cola. Coke was worried about ethnicity issues associated with a Michael Jackson brand and hence offered a disappointing US$1million. The deal was not good but Coke was Coke and Coke was big. Pepsi Cola, then not in the class of Coca Cola took advantage of the situation and gave Michael US$5million. The resultRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 9 August, 2018.   In our article titled Shylock and the Failed Banks; What PR practitioners should do, we suggested guiding principles that should enable public relations professionals craft a response to the banking crisis. We urged them to use truth and integrity to communicate in a timely fashion with the public at large. So we salute the management of KPMG Ghana for clarifying its position on Wednesday in relation to the bank failures. ‘The misinformation seeks to link KPMG as analysers of the 2017 Ghana Banking Awards and evaluators of the performance of some banks recently affected by Bank of Ghana’sRead More →

By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 8 August, 2018.   Ghana lacks a railway network and this will not change for many decades unless the problem is attacked in a novel manner. It is important to heed the lessons of history in order to appreciate railway development. Every great economy that transformed from agriculture to industrialisation used railways as a cheap form of transport to connect towns, and transport goods and persons. If I became the minister for railway development, a position that I think should be scrapped anyways, I’d work tirelessly with very powerful regional ministers at my side. ‘We need to improve upon theRead More →