Former Black Stars striker Augustine Arhinful has opened up about losing a contract with Unilever and certain properties after his employees exploited and mismanaged his supermarket business.
He revealed that Unilever and Nestlé had approached him to join their retailing chain as a key distributor due to the success of his supermarket named A and B.
Despite winning awards annually, Arhinful shared that there was no profit to match the performance of the business due to the persons managing it.
"The people managing the job started doing their own thing. The company was winning awards, yet I wasn't seeing any profit. Whenever I asked them, they would say, 'We break even this year, but we will see profit maybe around the 7th or 8th year,'" he told Dan Kwaku Yeboah TV on YouTube.
Despite the lack of profit, Arhinful said he was glad that people were employed and working.
"But I was happy that people had been employed and they were working," he shared.
He also mentioned securing a partnership contract with a rice supplier named CCT after impressing them in the first month. However, the business hit a hurdle when CCT suggested seeking a guarantee from the bank for a large-scale loan, revealing the precarious state of the business.
"I was in Turkey, and they called me to say that the bank refused the guarantee. We were in the Christmas holidays, so when I arrived (in Ghana), I went to the bank the next day," he shared.
Upon his return from Turkey, Arhinful said he discovered that his managers had taken 13 overdrafts and squandered the funds he had sent them.
"They (the bank) told me there were issues. I said, 'What are the issues? Because you have my contacts, if there are any issues, you should've told me.' Then they told me my people had taken more overdrafts than required. And I said, 'Ah, I only knew of one overdraft.' They had taken an additional 13 overdrafts, and the bank kept giving it to them because my properties were used as security. The security was huge. So, the money that I was bringing in, they were squandering," he disclosed.
"Virtually, they were working with the bank's money, and we were paying so much as interest. And it got to a time when they said they wouldn't give us the money again. Unilever stopped, and Nestlé stopped because it's a network; when you are not doing well, they see," the former Black Stars player added.
He mentioned that the bank took legal action against him, leading to the loss of two properties after a two-year legal battle.
"The next moment, the bank was in court and won the case. I appealed and won it. But the bank waited after a year, then sued my wife and me, and used the judgment they had had earlier. Eventually, I lost those properties. I lost two properties to the bank," he recounted.
Despite these setbacks, Arhinful remains one of the prosperous former Ghanaian footballers, known for his time with Assin Fosu Soccer Missionaries and Ashanti Gold in the Ghana Premier League before moving to Europe.
EE/MA
Watch Augustine Arhinful's interview below from 9:15
