The Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central Isaac Adongo has urged minister of state designate at the Finance Ministry Dr. Charles Adu Boahen to withdraw his company Black Stars Brokerage as a transaction advisor and a book-runner for government loans ahead of his vetting Wednesday or risk rejection.
The deputy ranking member for the finance Committee has also disclosed he will mount a crusade for the rejection of the nomination of Dr. Adu Boahen should he fail to heed since the move amounts to conflict of interest.
Addressing the media in parliament, Mr. Adongo further revealed his intention to petition CHRAJ to investigate not just the minister of state designate but also finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta whose DataBank is undertaking a similar exercise.
He added the IMF, World Bank and other international bodies will equally be petitioned.
Mr. Adongo told Starr News the explanation from Mr. Ofori-Atta that Databank has always been serving as book runners and transaction advisors is false.
He alleged “they are paid 0.35 percent per value, that gives you eight hundred and seventy-five million cedis in fees that Databank and the rest have had to share from the people of Ghana. This year, government’s total gross financing requirement is about 60 billion Ghana cedis, again you can offset about ten billion of that for other financing arrangement and treasury bills in the gross financing arrangement, and you have another close to fifty billion that would be borrowed by Ken Ofori Atta and his company and Charles Adu-Boahen and his company.”
“In all, we expect payment of two hundred and ten million Ghana cedis in fees and changes to be shared by these book-runners.
Mr Adongo called on both parties to “as a matter of conscience to withdraw those companies immediately. And for Charles Adu-Boahen who is due for vetting tomorrow to do the honorable thing and withdraw Black Star brokerage before tomorrow. I want to assure them that in this particular activity, I would not relent on it.”
“I am going to the extent of petitioning the IMF, the World Bank, I will petition the international investment committee and I will petition CHRAJ to look into this. I will make their issuance of bonds a murky business in 2021.”
The MP went on to say that “only recently you would have seen that the Bank of Ghana has reported very alarming figures for our national public debt. And that figure that was reported by the Bank of Ghana excludes the three billion dollars that we recently borrowed. Even if we are to use one billion of that to refund maturing debts or to call back other bonds that were issued, our public debt portfolios would now be in the region of three hundred and twenty billion.”
“That means that in a little of over four years we’ve added about two hundred billion to our public debt.”
He further stated “it is becoming very clear that the phenomenal growth in our public debt is influenced largely by some people at the ministry of finance who have made borrowing their private business because they benefit directly through their companies when Ghana borrows. So, we are no one having to borrow because Ghana needs it, but we have to borrow because their businesses need that money in order for them to be rich.”
“Only recently you would have noticed that the Bank of Ghana released a notice of the companies that have been contracted to be the book runners or the transactional advisors to the ministry of finance.”
He maintained “one would think that those companies were contracted by Bank of Ghana, no, they were contracted by the ministry of finance.
“And so Ken Ofori Atta as the minister for finance and Charles Adu Boahen who until recently when the minister for finance returned from his sick leave was the presidents’ representative at the ministry of finance and has been nominated as a minister of state at the ministry of finance has his company as one of the transactional advisors.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5fm
