![\"\"](\"https:\/\/writersghana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/download-6.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Isaac Ato MENSAH<\/p>\n
Accra \u2013 25 January, 2019<\/p>\n
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Let\u2019s make this simple \u2013 POTROG is head of state and head of government of the Republic of Ghana.<\/p>\n
Shall we add \u2018\u2026as by law established\u2019?<\/p>\n
On Monday 16 July, 2018, the Bank of Ghana (BOG) announced the cancellation of the purchase of ADB Bank by some fraudsters wearing corporate masks.<\/p>\n
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They are all those professionals hiding behind Belstar Capital Ltd., Starmount Development Co., EDC Investments Ltd., and SIC Financial Services Ltd.<\/p>\n
In the Ghana Football Association (GFA) scandal, Amanda Clinton, lawyer for the GFA rightfully argued that GFA should not be dissolved.<\/p>\n
Her argument was that in almost all such fraudulent situations, what the courts have done traditionally was to \u2018lift the veil of incorporation\u2019, punish the individuals involved and let the organisation which is a corporate person continue to exist.<\/p>\n
Solid logic a la the Nuremberg Trials.<\/p>\n
So when such a crime – stealing a state asset via purchasing ADB Bank in a clandestine manner has been uncovered and cancelled by BOG, the matter should be of national and international interest.<\/p>\n
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Why?<\/p>\n
First, SIC Insurance, one of the culprits, is a state-owned insurance company.<\/p>\n
Second, EDC Investments Limited is owned by Ecobank.<\/p>\n
And who are the owners of Ecobank?<\/p>\n
So you see the international dimension of this fraud?<\/p>\n
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Ordinarily, the proper thing this blog should do is to ask the regulators to punish the institutions involved and also the individual schedule officers of course and ensure their robust prosecution.<\/p>\n
BUT, we have crossed six months since the fraud was determined and pronounced upon by BOG.<\/p>\n
The culprits have not challenged the BOG decision and the nation has not heard anything since July last year.<\/p>\n
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In fact in a nation where microphone happy spokespersons suddenly refuse to answer questions from journalists and where freedom of information is a luxury, POTROG himself becomes the number one public relations officer of this nation.<\/p>\n
After all don\u2019t all our leaders jump into presidential jets, globe trotting and branding Ghana to investors under the mantra of \u2018rule of law\u2026.the legal system works\u2026..your investments are safe\u2019?<\/p>\n
CGTN Africa on 18 July, 2018 narrated the story this way:
\n\u201cBelstar and Starmount have participated in a series of other questionable, unsafe, and unsound related-party transactions involving UniBank Ghana Ltd. to the detriment of Ghana\u2019s financial system and for their financial gain and benefit,\u201d the regulator said. Belstar and Starmount \u201caren\u2019t fit and proper\u201d and cannot be allowed to hold shares either directly or indirectly in ADB, it said.<\/p>\n
Calls to the office of the acting managing director of SIC Financial Services, Eno Ofori-Atta, weren\u2019t answered. Simon Dornoo, the administrator of UniBank, wasn\u2019t available for queries when contacted at his office. Kisseih Antonio, the managing director of asset management at Ecobank Capital, didn\u2019t immediately comment when contacted by phone. Calls to the offices of Belstar and Starmount in the capital, Accra, didn\u2019t connect.”<\/p>\n
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If these institutions are \u2018not fit and proper persons\u2019 to hold and manage investors\u2019 monies according to the BOG’s own press statement available on its website, then what shall we say of the individual \u201cdamaging directors\u201d – as Ghanaian businessman Kofi Wayo, calls them, together with their RENTED BEAN COUNTERS \u2013 who worked on this criminal secretive theft of a state asset as corporate communications executives, marketing gurus, legal advisors, transaction advisors and ball boys begging for Keta School Boys?<\/p>\n
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Did these culprit organisations not incur any expenses in this bogus transaction?<\/p>\n
So why are their shareholders quiet?<\/p>\n
Or are they not aware of what the BOG discovered and acted upon.<\/p>\n
Sometimes when I sit under my neem tree and recall the drum appellations from school children at the Independence Square, Accra, calling on POTROG to speak to the nation, I wonder what will happen if he REALLY spoke like he is supposed to speak.<\/p>\n
We need answers and quickly too.<\/p>\n
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Feedback; ato@writersghana.com.<\/p>\n
Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited exists to be a moral and intellectual guide to the best practice of PR and integrated communications around the world, beginning with Ghana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"