Serious Fraud Office investigates Sterling Financial Services

Accra (Greater Accra) 1st July '99 The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said on Wednesday that investigations are continuing into the operations of Sterling Financial Services (SFS) on its role as consultants to the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC).

In an interview in Accra on how far the investigations have gone, Mr Tetteh Mensah, Assistant Director, Investigations, said documents on the company have been recalled from the Registrar-General's Department, Internal Revenue Service and other allied bodies to facilitate investigations. He would not disclose the kind of investigations that the SFO is undertaking in respect of the allegations against SFS since this would undermine the whole process, and urged the media to bear with them.

he SFO last week said it had detected some anomalies in the business dealings of SFS in respect of procedures for engaging it as consultants to the DIC, the contractual relationship as well as its professional conduct in the transactions it has handled so far.

The SFO's investigations will also include allegations of conflict of interest between SFS and its sister companies and other matters related to specific divestitures it has undertaken.

Independent investigations since last week revealed that SFS is a subsidiary of Metropolitan Insurance Company.