Ken Ofori-Atta will collapse the country – NDC MP

The National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga central, Isaac Adongo, has alleged that Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta Manipulated the process of the issuance of the controversial 2.25 billion dollar bond.

The MP’s comments come hours after the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ)cleared Mr Ofori-Atta of any conflict of interest levelled against him in the deal.

However, Hon Adongo who is also a member of the finance committee argued that CHRAJ’s findings rather exposed more lapses in the process.

He believes that, Mr Ofori-Atta and his allies deliberately failed to ensure transparency in the issuing of the bond.

He said “…These are career professionals who have been doing this for decades. Why is that they got it right all the time but on this occasion, they decided to side-step every single process of transparency in order to issue this bond? In fact, in one of the instances, we realized that the position was even worse than we thought. That they were instructed at 12.00 to start the bidding and by 2 the bidding will close- two hours.”

He revealed that “We even thought that it was four hours. In some of the instances, the report indicates that even before the Bank of Ghana was aware of what Ministry of Finance wanted it to borrow for, the book runners were already advertising it so where did the book runners get the information? What was it that within two hours, Franklin Templeton and plenty of his associates were aware of this transaction and were able to bid? The issue is murkier and it is much more an indictment on Ken Ofori Atta and I have said that Ken Ofori Atta is the biggest risk to the financial system of this country and if we do not take care, Ken Ofori Atta will collapse this country.”

Meanwhile, CHRAJ commenced the investigation five months ago after they were petitioned by a member of the NDC called Yaw Brogya Genfi petitioned the commission in April to investigate Mr Ofori Atta’s position on the issuance of the bond.