Ghana’s Embassy in Belgium: Bank accounts closure nothing to do with blacklist - EU

Head of the European Union delegation to Ghana, Ambassador Diana Acconcia, has refuted reports that Ghana’s Embassy in Belgium has been ordered to close its accounts with ING Bank on grounds of EU blacklisting the country.

According to Ambassador Acconcia, it was purely a business decision taken by the bank.

Speaking on Asaase Radio on Monday, 12 October 2020, she explained that “the fact that the account of the Embassy of Ghana in Belgium and the European Union has been closed by a Belgium Bank, that was a business decision taken by the bank. The bank was not at all obliged by the EU to close the account of the Embassy”.

She added that: “It was a business decision to apply more checks to the Embassy. The listing does not affect trade, development aid and there will be no problem in paying the budgetary support and the main projects we have in Ghana…. Ghana is doing a lot already because there is the Financial Intelligence Center at the Central Bank among others to check some of these things.”

Ambassador Acconcia further stated that her outfit’s commitment to Ghana as a key development partner has seen the EU advancing 87 million Euros to the government as a grant to alleviate the plight caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Covid is a global threat but we’ve to respond together. If our partners, particularly Africa sinks then we all sink together. We’re giving out 87 million Euros to Ghana. Ghana reached out to development partners for help and we looked around for the resources.

This support is not tied to any particular action that Ghana should take. The money will be paid in a few days into the Ghanaian treasury. It will be up to the government to decide what to do with it.”

She stressed: “It’s important to say that this is a grant so it does not add to the debt of the government. Basically, it is to compensate for the loss in revenue Ghana has suffered because of the pandemic. It’s an extraordinary measure of which we don’t normally do. We’ve done our own public finance management assessment and Ghana is an eligible recipient.”