Woyome, Financial Engineering and How Ghana Benefited From It

Investigations conducted by the Daily Post indicates that the abrogation of the CAN 2008 Stadia Project by the then President Kufuor which led to the failure of the Government Of Ghana (GOG) to access a soft loan of €1.106,470,587.00 secured for the project by businessman Alfred Woyome has caused the nation dearly.

Among the facilities Ghana lost as a result of Kufuor’s pettiness are six hospitals and a wellness centre for which €329,411,765 had been earmarked for from the total amount secured. Another facility Ghana lost was a Cobalt 60 plant and Tissue Culture Facility for which €12,941,176.00 had been budgeted for.

The third facility is an Olympic stadium for which €764,117,646.00 was going to be used on.

The soft loan of €1.106,470,587.00 had a grant component of 36.97% and was secured from banks in Austria based on a guarantee of MIGA (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency), the insurance company of the World Bank which is based in Washington, DC, USA.

A memorandum from the CAN 2008 sub-committee on Finance to the Hon. Minister of Sports said on 20th July, 2005, members of the committee, made up of Lionel Van Lare Dosoo, Deputy Governor, Bank of Ghana, Yvonne Quansah, Head, Aid & Debt Unit of the Ministry of Finance, Mark Made, representing Paul Asimenu of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Finance and Dr. M Opoku-Afari, of the Research Department of the Bank of Ghana met Alfred Woyome representing VAMED “to confirm the credibility, viability, timeliness and current status of the financial package,” he had presented to them.

The Committee, in the memo submitted to the Minister of Sports on July 22, 2005 said it “….recommends that VAMED (Alfred Woyome) be contacted immediately for further discussions in view of the lengthy process required to secure the MIGA guarantee.”

In summary, the committee held that Woyome’s financial package , for which Hon Kweku Agyeman-Manu, then Deputy Minister for Finance backed with a Letter of Introduction to the Austrian banks on May 4, 2005, was ready to be accessed. Interestingly, rather than access the funds so Ghana could have the Olympic stadium, the six hospitals and wellness centre, the Cobalt 60 plant and Tissue Culture Centre, Kufuor viciously denied Ghanaians all these by refusing to access the funds. Legal experts hold that the failure of the GOG to access the funds cannot deny Mr. Woyome between 0.5% to 5% that is paid to financial engineers according to international best practices after they have managed to secure funds for a government.

Indeed, it is instructive to note that while some people, including ex-President Kufuor and Former Chief of Staff, Kwadwo Mpiani have ignorantly argued the Mr. Woyome does not deserve the money because he had no contract, what the businessman had basically fought for is professional fees for the financial engineering which secured the €1,106.478,587 for Ghana. Financial engineering is said to be a very complex work which involves the expertise of several professionals. In a letter to the Ministry of Finance dated March 29, 2010, Deputy Attorney-General, Barton Oduro said the Director, Legal of the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Paul Asimenu “acknowledged that he was a member of a three-member evaluation team that adjudged the finance offer from Mr. Woyome as the most competitive and “given the complexity of the work involved in securing the finance in question, the claim (by Woyome of 2% of the total of €1,106,470,587.00) is deemed legitimate)”

Indeed, this was not the first time that Mr. Alfred Woyome had through financial engineering secured money for Ghana to put up projects. NPP insiders have confided in the Daily Post, that it was through Mr. Woyome’s financial engineering acumen that the Kufuor government secured money to put up three badly needed hospitals which are today located at Sogakofe, Begoro and Gushegu.

Mr. Woyome secured funding from Austria for the NPP government to put up the Sogakofe hospital while that for the Gushegu hospital was from Holland. He was, at the time, the Deputy Consul of the Austrian Consulate in Ghana and therefore was compelled to act in a non-partisan manner at all times.

“But for him, those hospitals would not been in existence today,” one NPP insider told this paper.

However, thanks to Kufuor’s pettiness and vindictiveness, the six hospitals (two were to have helicopter landings for emergencies), a cobalt 60 plant which helps in the treatment of cancer as well as a multi-purpose fitness centre are not available to Ghanaians today. In subsequent editions, the Daily Post will treat into details the badly needed facilities Mr. Alfred Woyome made available to Ghana but which the country lost thanks to Kufuor’s vindictiveness .

Stay tuned.