Kofi Asamoah- Siaw urges Parliament to reject Ken Ofori-Atta’s nomination

I heard that Databank had decided not to continue as transaction advisors in the controversial Agyapa Deal. I treated the news casually until I chanced upon a quotation from Databank’s Group CEO Kojo Addae-Mensah.

Mr. Kojo Addai Mensah is quoted to have said that :  “The Board of Directors of Databank has observed with deep concern persistent attempts by some political actors, during the political season leading up to the general elections of December 2020, to tarnish our hard-won reputation painstakingly built over the last 30 years, by unfairly exploiting our participation and involvement in the transaction as one of the transaction advisors. We believe this is principally due to the Minister of Finance’s association with Databank as its co-founder.”

I am for Ghanaian companies and their growth and development and I have no problem seeing Databank flourish and prosper at any time ‘t’. 

But I am angered by this hypocrisy of the highest order coming from the Group CEO of Databank. Databank and Enterprise Group has benefited from the appointment of its owner or co-owner, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta unmeritouroisly. 

Databank has virtually being hand-picked as transactional advisors for the over USD6Billion Eurobond contracted by its owner Ken Ofori-Atta acting as Finance Minister. By this engagement alone, Databank has earned between USD60million and USD180Million in transaction fees in just four years. 

Databank used and is using the offices of collapsed financial institutions to sell its investment products to the public; an act of expansion of Databank services on the back of these collapsed firms. 

Databank benefited from a rigged procurement process so that they could partner Imara South Africa as transactional advisors in the Agyapa Deal which sought to bequeath Ghana’s Gold Royalties to family and friends of the Finance Minister. 

Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta virtually took former employees of Databank and sent them to head the Securities & Exchange Commission, the National Pensions Regulatory Authority, the National Insurance Commission, the Bank of Ghana and important positions within the Ministry of Finance which is the political authority that supervises all these financial sector regulatory authorities. 

Moreover, Ken Ofori-Atta abused his position as the controller of the public purse not to pay monies owed by the Republic to companies considered to be Databank’s competitors. 

Ken Ofori-Atta, after creating artificial liquidity challenges to these companies, relied on the regulatory agencies under his supervision to revoke the licences and collapsed some of these Databank competitor companies. 

This was obvious to objective minds like mine that Ken Ofori-Atta wanted and has succeeded to dictate and control the financial services sector of our economy to the disadvantage of other economic actors and entrepreneurs seen an political opponents. 

When all these were happening, Mr. Kojo Addai Mensah did not see the need to speak up. 

When they realised that, the time to render account is nigh, they have found the need to make amends.

I will encourage our Members of Parliament, especially the NDC MPs to make Ghana proud by rejecting the nomination of Ken Ofori-Atta. I have nothing personal against him; I don’t even know him. But I detest plain abuse and arrogance of power for a public servant, who was not even voted for, to abuse his office against the national interest in such a manner.

Parliament is not part of the Executive and it’s not supposed to be part of it. If the NPP MPs decide to vote for Ken Ofori-Atta, so be it for their partisan considerations, but the NDC owe it to the people of Ghana to respect their parliamentary numerical strength given to them by the Ghanaian electorate. 

If Ghana’s Parliament cannot stand up to the Executive’s abuse of power, then we, the citizens, must consider another form of government.