NPP Jabs Mahama Over Corruption
Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey
The party mentioned a number of stinky deals it said President Mahama had superintended since 2009, saying he lacked the credibility to lead the country, and warning that “a vote for JDM is a vote for hopelessness for the youth and a vote for corruption.”
The brother of President Mahama was particularly singled out by the NPP who cited him in a transaction that smacked of fraud on the contributors of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) pension fund.
A company owned by Ibrahim Mahama, junior brother of the president, Engineers and Planners, was said to have virtually collapsed the Merchant Bank, owned by SSNIT contributors, through over exposure to non-secured loans.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Deputy Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Yaw Buaben Asamoa raised issues about the circumstances under which Engineers and Planners Limited, owned by Ibrahim Mahama, benefitted from the sale of Merchant Bank Ghana (MBG), a company in which SSNIT contributors owned 98 percent stake, to a South African Bank, FirstRand.
Under the terms of the sale, the FirstRand was required to pay an amount of 746.2 million South African Rand, the equivalent of $91million for a 75 percent stake in Merchant Bank Ghana to expand its presence on the continent in a deal that was approved by the Government of Ghana (GoG).
At the time, Merchant Bank, which was one of the few remaining Ghanaian banks in the country, was said to be reeling under a heavy burden of a GH¢330million debt which was choking the bank to an eventual collapse.
Among the list of companies and individuals that were indebted to the bank was Ibrahim’s Engineers and Planners, owing not less than GH¢57.2m, representing 19.1% of the total debt owed the bank before it was sold out.
Interestingly, much of these loans had been turned into bad debts while the Managing Director of Merchant Bank, who signed off the loans and was sacked for error of judgment, was said to be in the office of President Mahama now as an Advisor, raising eyebrows.
What seemed to baffle the leadership of the NPP was the fact that the transaction excluded some of the loans on the Bank’s balance sheet.
The Issue
Meanwhile, existing shareholders are expected to continue to collect outstanding balances.
For the NPP, what this meant was that “suffering workers of Ghana have been forced to swallow the bad debts incurred by some business people so that those business people can go on enjoying their lives of luxury, including flying around in their private jets.”
This, according to Mr Buaben Asamoa, was because “the pension of Ghanaian workers have been sacrificed to pay off debts that they knew nothing of so that some few people could continue having access to their privileged lives of comfort and opulence.”
Nevertheless, the NPP said they did not wish Ibrahim, the President’s brother, who they described as “the young, very enterprising man” ill, adding, “In fact we celebrate success.”
“When your company falls into bad debt and cannot service its loans and the pension funds of the workers of Ghana are forced by the President, who happens to be your brother, for that pension fund to ring fence and take on your debt, then we have to ask some serious questions.”
In view of this and a host of crucial issues involving the President including his role in the infamous STX Korean housing deal, which ended in a fiasco among others, the NPP as a party believed that President Mahama lacked the integrity to lead the country.
They equally believed a vote for him would be a vote for the sellout of Ghana’s future since “he has nothing to offer to the youth”.