Bond saga: Summon Finance Minister or go to CHRAJ – Minority told

Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Dr Anthony Akoto Osei has urged Minority MPs to push for the appearance of Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta or petition the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to interrogate the $2.25 billion bond recently issued by government.

Ninety-five per cent of the domestic bond issued by the Government of Ghana recently is indebted to a non-resident creditor, Franklin Templeton.

However, the Minority, led by former Deputy Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson, said Mr Trevor G. Trefgarne, a director at Franklin Templeton, is also a Director at Enterprise Group Limited, a company of which Ghana’s Finance Minister Mr Ofori-Atta is co-founder, thus, raising issues of transparency, conflict of interest, non-approval by parliament, and suspicion.

But Dr Osei has told Moro Awudu on Class FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Monday, April 24 that government did not err considering the fact that the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government issued a bond last year using similar processes. Nonetheless, he has urged the Minority to use the right processes to address their grievances.

“If people have fact, they know what to do. For example, they can summon the Minister to come to parliament and give us details or if they want to go to CHRAJ.”

He admonished individuals including Mr Forson to be cautious when dealing with national matters and desist from actions that could have negative repercussions on the country globally.

He indicated that proper channels to address issues are important but the Minority should stay away from populism.

“Making allegations of such matters, you have to be cautious in the language we use because we are all for Ghana. If they have legitimate issues we have ways of dealing with them and we should not be populist especially when it is coming from somebody who did a similar thing on the 10-year bond last year,” he added.