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Opinions of Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Columnist: Sarpong, Justice

Only In Mahama's Corrupt Ghana Is 1+1=11 Not 2

Folks, where is 90 million Ghana cedis better than 199 million Ghana cedis?Only in Mahama's corrupt Ghana where Fortiz Equity Fund, a wholly owned Ghana company offer to buy government owned Merchant Bank for 90 Ghana cedis and 90% ownership is a better offer than what the South African company, Rand corporation was ready to pay, 199 million Ghana cedis and less ownership percentage, 75%. This "Donkomi" giveaway of Ghana company to party and friends apparatchiks like Mawuli Hedo,a director of Fortiz,who is also a director at First Banc, the Scheme Administrators of the Temporary Pension Fund Account have schemed their way in stealing another asset from Ghana

The question that every patriotic citizen of Ghana should be asking is why will the government accept less money and less ownership from Fortiz than what Rand of South Africa offered. The answer is simply because of Presidents Mahama's brother Ibrahim's company, Engineers and Planners (E & P) 38 million dollars indebtness to Merchant Bank which Rand refused to be part of the purchasing agreement that would have allowed the President's brother to walk away from his obligation.

"President John Dramani Mahama was even accused of imploring Merchant bank to go easy on Engineers and Planners (E & P), a company owned by his brother, Ibrahim Mahama, which is indebted to Merchant Bank to the tune of US$38 million."

In layman's terms, the Rand corporation offer was better in that, Ghana would have received 199 million Ghana cedis or 100 million dollars and still go after Ibrahim Mahama's 38 million dollars to sweeten the deal further but snippets of news coming out have shown that, there were a series of meetings held between the President and officials of Merchant Bank to find a way to help his brother walk away from his debt to Ghana and stick Ghana Pensioners with that debt which seems to have worked.

The sale has come under severe criticism leading to the Executive Director of the Centre for Freedom and Accuracy, Mr. Andrew Awuni, filing a suit in court against the intended sale, which he believes is a breach of procedure and lacks transparency.

Not only does it lack transparency but it is shrouded in corruption garments and my suspicion is that, Fortiz bought Merchant Bank with Pensioners money and also took the President's brother loan from Merchant Bank as part of the deal and that is why Kweke Baako has been promising Ghanaians that Ibrahim will pay his loan to the Bank in December. Actually Ibrahim will not pay anything but the new ownership has assumed Ibrahim's obligation to the Bank and that is why the government agreed to let them walk away with Ghana's property on pennies on the dollar. Fortis will later come out and tell Ghanaians that, Ibrahim's E&P company has paid its loan to the Bank after using Pensioners money to retire that debt.

Folks, your President Mahama is corrupt to the marrow and cannot fight corruption because he is a template for corruption with his past record in many contract assignments on behalf of Ghana.If you are in doubt of my suspicions, read what SSNIT said about this sale.

"State Pension Fund manager, Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), recently issued a statement explaining among other things, why the deal with Fortiz went through. According to SSNIT, its deal with First Rand would have nothing to do with the bank’s bad loans while that with Fortiz will see it recovering at least 30 percent of the loans as well as make moves to recover the remaining 70 percent."

This is where the corruption will rear its ugly head. Rand did not want any part of the bad loans of this Bank which SSNIT could have sold Merchant for the 100 million dollars Rand offered and still maintain 25% ownership of the new Bank and still recover some of the bad loans so why will they accept 45 million dollars and only 10% ownership and telling us they will recover 30% of the bad loans? SSNIT is managed by NDC Mahama's appointed managers and board and who succumbed to the pressure from the President's office to help his brother walk away from his debt whilst riding in a personal plane purchased with the loan money.

I keep telling these people to be very careful with their blatant stealing of Ghana properties because the next People's revolution will make Rawlings daytime armed robbery he called a revolution a child's play.

Justice Sarpong

(CARDINAL of TRUTH)