Our petition to US SEC not meant to disgrace Ghana - Ablakwa

The minority ranking member on foreigner affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has rubbished claims that the decision of the Minority in Parliament to dig deep into the controversial $2.25billion bond is aimed at disgracing the country.

He insists the minority side in parliament has observed some flaws in the acquisition of the bond which informed its decision to petition the U.S.A Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the matter.

“As I said in April this year, we are using every means available to us including going international to ensure that the questions we have raised about the $2.25 billion bond are answered. I have just presented the petition to the U.S.A Securities and Exchange Commission and they have given us a code which they will use to be communicating with us. We had very fruitful discussions. Let me state that they are impressed with the documents we presented to them. They have promised to investigate the matter thoroughly but have not been able to give timelines”, he said.

According to him, the wide scope of approaches to unraveling the sale of the bond is not meant to disgrace the country as many perceive insisting that the minority is not wrong in going international with its concerns on matters it is unclear about.

The Minority in Parliament petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the US, over the US$2.25 billion bond issue, 95% of which was purchased by Franklin Templeton

The government in April this year, auctioned a total of 2.25 billion dollars in four bonds.The first two bonds, totalling 1.13 billion dollars, was issued at 15 and 7 years period with the same coupon of 19.75%. In addition, the Ministry of Finance raised the Cedi equivalent of USD1.12 billion in 5 and 10-year bonds via a tap-in arrangement.

The Minority then raised concerns over the bond issue and called for a full-scale parliamentary probe into how some persons they referred to as very close friends of the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, purchased 95% of Ghana’s recent 2.25 billion dollar bond.

The Bank of Ghana and Finance Ministry have insisted that the bond could not have been manipulated as claimed by the Minority but officials and Members of Parliament of the opposition NDC have insisted a probe is required.