This Is "IFC" Schneider's Office

• Concord investigations in US reveals troubling signals on Chemac/IFC
• Schneider now says Chemac has nothing to do with IFC after admitting connection in previous interviews
• Promises full interview with Concord after meeting Ghanaian officials in Europe this week.

In the quiet of the upscale area of northern New Jersey lie boroughs famous for their million-dollar houses on multi-acre plots, office buildings and condominiums. This area includes Maywood, and Englewood, where Hollywood superstars Eddie Murphy, Whitney Houston and husband Bobby Brown, and a number of American football and basketball stars have homes.

Not too far from here is Saddle River. Near one of the several suburban highways in Upper Saddle River and in an area not particularly famous for corporate activities unlike other areas of the Saddle River borough, is an Amoco Gas Station. Opposite the station is Pleasant Avenue, a quiet street with few hired-out offices and a restaurant.

Tucked away in building 123, an estimated 30ft by 60ft building with six windows on the front, and four buildings away from the Gas Station is the ruling New Patriotic Party’s latest flirtation with controversy: the office of the small high pressure, pipes and cleaning company run by a man described by one of his staff as being “at large”. The single building, with a height barely half of Koala Shopping Centre, Osu, serves as offices to two companies: Chemac Incorporated, and Northeast Controls Incorporated, a sales engineering company.

Chemac Inc., [www.chemacinc.com] retails and services water pumps, water cleaning and jetting systems, sealing products, and pump control systems. Unlike its unrelated manufacturing namesake, Chemac Industries Incorporated [www.chemac.com] of British Columbia, Canada, Chemac Inc., is a sales and services company. Chemac and Northeast Controls, who together share building 123 with it, are also unrelated.

The other Chemac Industries Incorporated, which is Canada-based, has Mr. Luc J. Devolder as its President and CEO.

On the contrary, Mr. Horst Schneider, the bearer of the deutsche-sounding name is President of Chemac Inc., and the man behind the controversial Parliament-approved US$350 million ($1 billion overall) International Financial Consortium (IFC) Global Limited company’s proposed loan to Ghana.

Extensive research reveals that Chemac is not on the ivy league of major business enterprises in the state of New Jersey, New York, or the US of A. Chemac Inc., and IFC, which has Schneider as a board member are both not listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or any of the stock exchanges in the US. Chemac is also not listed among companies on the northern New Jersey (NJ) database of 18,211 companies on Better Business Bureau (BBB), a database described to this reporter by a World Bank headquarters staff in Washington DC as an index of corporate institutions in good standing in the US. The BBB is a database operated by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), Inc., of both the USA and Canada.

“Any company with that record will be listed. If it’s a real, good company, it will be on their books’ remarked the World Bank staff in her recommendation of BBB to this reporter in an interview conducted by phone from here last Tuesday, July 23.

She was responding to questions on claims by Schneider and Ghana government leaders that the Bahamas-registered IFC (not the International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group) has an enviable track record in lending money to developing countries.

Despite the presence on the Internet of the small-size Chemac Inc, the IFC of which the Chemac’s president is a board member and which claims credit for giving Ghana her biggest ever private sector loan of $1 billion at the rate of 2.5% per annum, does not exist on the worldwide web.

Many here, Americans and Ghanaians alike, have also not heard of it. The $1 billion loan agreement has assumed cause celebre status in Ghana with several people expressing sharply divergent opinions. While many believe the loan, expected to be delivered in three tranches of $350m, $350m and $300m looks too good to be genuine and feared something untoward, others believe it is no scam.

The latter school of thought are convinced the loan agreement represents a massive vote of confidence the Kufuor administration has gained in the eyes of foreign lending institutions.

To these people the $1billion loan agreement, the first such loan agreement sourced outside of the official Bretton Woods institutions, represents a benchmark in the business relationship between African governments and foreign lending institutions.

They have cited the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) flirtations with the International Financial Consortium in the past as proof of the credibility of the consortium.

This was concurred by Senior Minister, John Henry Mensah in an interview with the Concord in the wake of Parliament’s approval a fortnight ago.

“What Parliament approves is what you have authority to do. Now that we have the approval we are going to tackle our infrastructural development programme,” he stressed.

Encounter with Schneider

Despite all these, Mr. Horst Schneider, presently the only visible board member of IFC told this reporter last Friday that he and other business partners would provide the $1 billion loan to aid development in Ghana. Schneider, who spoke briefly to this reporter at the office of Chemac in Saddle River, New Jersey, also complained about what he called “misrepresentations in the Ghanaian media.”

“Chemac has nothing to do with IFC,” Schneider quickly told this reporter whose disappointment about his mini-office registered visibly. “This is just a small place and has nothing to do with IFC. Our (IFC) office is in Manhattan, 5th Avenue. This is the misrepresentation that your media has created”, he complained, explaining that Chemac is different from the IFC and has nothing to do with it.

“I know it’s a limited liability company and it’s to get into the real issues that I’ve called your office more than eight times and left several messages on your voicemail without a response,” this reporter responded, adding, “I’m here to find out the truth about this loan business”.

But Schneider would not comment on the questions this reporter had for him. According to him he was in a rush to the United Nations office in midtown Manhattan to attend a meeting. He would, he said, then fly off to Germany and meet Ghanaian officials in “Europe” to finalise details on the loan.

Strikingly, though IFC is a limited liability company and by law an independent corporate entity, the address of Chemac appeared as that of IFC on the original loan agreement between Ghana and the IFC. Schneider himself in an interview with Joy FM monitored here responded in the affirmative to a question on whether the Chemac’s office was that of the IFC. Media reports monitored here also indicated that Peace FM and Joy FM had both interviewed the IFC board member on Chemac’s phone line (1-201-934-3300). This reporter had also reached Schneider’s office via the above Chemac number and the toll free number (1-800-217-8677).

As he opened his car door, Schneider, who may be in his early 60s, declined to have his picture taken.

“I’d like a picture of you to illustrate my story if you don’t mind”, I asked. “No, no, I don’t like pictures. You know I don’t like publicity.” He did not however object to a picture of Chemac’s office being shot. But he quickly offered an explanation when he recognised a flash of interest in his small wine coloured Mercedes Benz.

“You see I use a small car because we want to use our money to help your people”, he said.

“A Benz is a Benz, and in my country it’s a top class car, except of course you’re talking of cars like Lincolns” the reporter replied, to which he responded that there are more expensive cars like limousines.

He politely then offered to leave, but not before he had agreed on an appointment for a full interview in a week, when he said he would have returned from the meeting in Europe. He has since met J. H. Mensah in Germany but is yet to fix an interview with this reporter.Stay tuned for more findings on Chemac and the IFC saga.

From Upper Saddle River, New Jersey Alfred Ogbamey reporting for Concord/Ghanaweb, with additional files in Accra from Paa Kwesi Plange