Stock Exchange Boss Dragged to CHRAJ

The Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange has been sent to the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, CHRAJ, by a former legal adviser of the Exchange.

In his petition, Joseph Aboagye Debrah, the complainant, said his intention for initiating the action is to establish that no employer under "the guise of confidentiality can forward information which is calculated to permanently injure the employee's reputation and then refuse to give a copy of such communication to the employee."

He said that due to some challenges in his job he decided to apply for a position with a new company after serving the GSE for six years.

After being interviewed by the new company, Mr. Debrah said he was offered a job as Deputy Company Secretary.

Joseph Debrah in an interview said he was definite that he lost his new job because of a negative report sent to his new employers, as the letter informing him of the withdrawal of the job spoke of "a confidential report received."

He also revealed that none of his three named referees sent the damaging report because he had seen what they sent in to support his application. Knowing that there is no adverse report on his records at the Exchange and in order to clarify for himself whatever doubts may exist, the complainant said he went to Mr. Yeboah Amoah to ask for a copy of the report that the former boss had sent to the new employers.

This request was refused. He then formally requested a copy of the report, which was again refused though in the reply, according to Mr. Debrah, the respondent admitted that he had sent a report to the company in question.

Recourse to the Council of the Exchange to get a copy of the report has still not yielded fruit. When asked why such a situation could occur if he had done nothing wrong, Debrah said that the only issue that could have led to his predicament must be a disagreement he had with Mr. Yeboah Amoah last year over the disposal of assets belonging to the Ghana Stock Exchange. According to Mr. Debrah, his boss did not talk to him for three months after he asked management to take a second look at a plan to sell a company vehicle to the General Manager of the GSE.

He said that he wrote a note advising that the transaction was untimely for its future implications and at a time when the company's financial position was not strong. In a bid to hear what Yeboah Amoah had to say and to ascertain the truth or otherwise of other charges made against him by sources within the GSE, he was approached for his side of the story.

Using the old tactic of carrot and stick, the GSE boss first took the route of flattery before dragging the existence of civil libel into the discussion. He would not speak on some of the allegations made against him saying they touched on private matters.

He did not comment on the issue of the End of Service Benefits that seems to be at the core of the case. Mr. Yeboah Amoah however admitted that he is a member of an investment consultancy service firm, but said there was no issue of conflict between his attachment to the firm and his position as GSE boss since he is only a non-executive member of the company.

He said he receives no salary from the firm and has no office there and added, "it is not a crime to be on the board of other firms". Because the GSE boss had said " if you have an issue with any official of the GSE, it is the Council or Security Exchanges Commission (SEC)" that will clarify the situation, inquiries were made at SEC.

These revealed that a few months ago, an official of the investment firm INVESTEK approached the commission for a license to operate in the market, but it was ascertained that one of its directors was Yeboah Amoah, "the company was then advised to re-organize itself before coming back to the SEC, since an association with the GSE boss would not be the best of situations."

The company has since not come back to continue with the discussion. Sources in the industry have revealed that as at February 1999, Mr. Yeboah Amoah had fifty percent shares in INVESTEK with Fredua Agyeman Manuh holding the rest.