MOFEP budget director siphons ¢7 billion from GT

Ripples over issues concerning operations and divestiture of Ghana Telecom (GT) have just begun as the Financial Intelligence (FI) can reveal that very big heads will soon begin to roll.

President Mills has directed the various relevant state agencies to start dealing with issues raised by the Inter-Ministerial Review Committee’s report, and some of the people whose activities would soon become subjects of forensic audit are Kwabena Agyei Mensah, immediate past Director for Budget at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning(MOFEP), Nana Antwi Boasiako, former Board Chairman of GT, Dickson Oduro Nyaning, former Chief Executive Officer of GT and Deputy Chief Financial Officer of GT, Joseph Owusu-Ansah.

The committee, under the heading ‘Illegal payments to some local Union Officials; and the use of Debt Collectors to collect revenue from Government of Ghana (GoG), the sole owner of GT,’ averred that there was money racketeering in the employment of “Kobby Mensah and Associates” a debt collection agency to collect debts owed GT by GoG (sole owner of GT).

According to the committee “Koby Mensah and Associates’ has links to personnel at the Ministry of Finance, the paying Ministry.”

Documents available to the committee, which this paper has also seen indicate that Mr Agyei Mensah, and one Papa Kofi Mensah had used the said debt collection agency to siphon at least ¢ 7 billion from GT.

According to these documents, after the exit of the Malaysians from GT, Mr Owusu-Ansah approved of the payment of 10% of all invoice values made by Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to GT to Mr Kofi Mensah and Mr Adjei Mensah under the guise of commission for the collection of debts from the MOFEP. Documents however available from Ghana Telecom indicate that all letters demanding payment for the use of GT telephones by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) made to MOFEP were written by Mr. Owusu Ansah, to Dr.Osei Akoto, the then deputy minister at the finance ministry.

These letters were supported by Invoices from GT for the respective Government Departments and based on these letters; payments were made to Ghana Telecom. It is therefore surprising how the sum of ¢ 7 billion ended up in the pockets of Mr. Agyei Mensah and Mr Kofi Mensah as commission for the period of eight months.

Payment vouchers also made available to the committee points to a possible issue of forgery, as the Official Stamp used to collect the money from the Bank of Ghana was that of the Deputy Chief Financial Officer, but the signature was that of Mr Kofi Mensah, the alleged debt collector.

A witness (name withheld) who spoke to the committee stated that a Bank of Ghana cheque of ¢17.45 billion paid by MOFEP issued on 14th April 2005 has not been paid into any known GT Account.

This witness noted that if Nana Antwi Boasiako, who was also the Chairman of the Audit Committee of the company had performed his functions as expected, many of the loop-holes would have been plugged to save a lot of money for GT. It is interesting to note that one of the major arguments postulated for the sale of GT was liquidity.

This lack of funds led the company's management team to complete a bond issue for $200 million at 8.5% coupon, without informing the GoG in 2007 at the time the privatization was on-going. This became part of the debt that the GoG had to pick up as part of implementing the debt-free, cash-free transaction sale terms of GT.