Arrest Ibrahim Mahama - Owusu Bempah

Deputy Communications Director for the National Democratic Party (NDP), Ernest Owusu Bempah, has called on Security agencies in the country to arrest President John Mahama's brother, Ibrahim Mahama, who is said to be indebted to Merchant Bank.

Addressing the hullabaloo surrounding the loan grant to Engineers and Planners (E&P); a firm owned by Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, Owusu Bempah wondered why he (Ibrahim Mahama) still walks about freely without the Security agencies accosting him.

According to him, the actions and inactions of the President's brother are the cause of the woes that have since befallen Merchant Bank.

There is empirical evidence to show that President Mahama, as Vice President, and acting on a petition to him by lawyer for E&P, Tony Lithur, demanded explanations from Merchant Bank why they had refused to grant his brother the loan for his company's operational costs during a meeting with them.

Reports say Mr. Lithur asked him to intervene to "maintain the status quo ante” and to “enable Engineers and Planners take a structured approach to solving its problems with Merchant Bank."

"J.K Bebaako-Mensah, the then Secretary to the President, in a letter dated 3 September 2012, wrote to Merchant Bank, asking its Managing Director to respond to Tony Lithur’s petition.

The Bank’s board responded in a ten-page letter dated 24 September, 2012.

It referred to various meetings the board chairperson, Mrs. Marian Barnor, had at the Presidency following earlier reports to the seat of government about the bank’s handling of the debt owed to it by E&P.

The first of the meetings was with President John Mahama, who was then Vice-President, according to the Board.

Mrs Barnor, the Board Chairperson, at that meeting, was asked by the Chief of Staff to meet Mr. Mahama to explain why the bank at the time had decided not to release monies to Engineers and Planners which owed the bank $38 million," as published by Peacefmonline.com on Tuesday, December 3, 2013.

But to Owusu Bempah, who also spoke to Peacefmonline.com, the President's brother must face the full rigors of the law for supposedly causing the gradual downfall of the Bank.

According to him, it is an act of nepotism on the part of President John Dramani Mahama, who in his view, would quickly go after the likes of Dr. Samuel Amo Tobin of Tobinco Pharmaceuticals Limited while his brother's company embezzles whopping sums of money to a tune of 66 million dollars from Merchant Bank.

"If the President can go after Tobinco, what is stopping him from bringing the Security agencies to go after his own brother, Ibrahim, who is the leader of Engineers and Planners who have embezzled or taken a loan from a bank which" is at the verge of collapse.

“Merchant bank, it belongs to the ordinary people. The worker, and he has borrowed such an amount, whopping amount of money and he’s still walking about free and nobody is doing anything.”

He questioned the commitment of the Security agencies to execute their duties effectively.

“What is the National Security and the EOCO doing about it? Why are they not going after Ibrahim Mahama? Is it because he’s the President’s brother? That’s why he’s not been attacked or he’s not being investigated by the Security agencies?” he asked.