Mahama must pay for the Merchant Bank sale - NPP UK

We in NPP UK are demanding that Ghanaians should rise up in a KUME PREKO style and demand for justice and explanation from the government in what appears to be the most corrupt enterprise yet of the NDC administration led by John Mahama over the controversial sale of Merchant Bank, fully owned by SSNIT which holds the fortunes of a Ghana Pension Fund.

We believe that it is increasingly becoming unconscionable each passing day why Ghanaians are allowing John Mahama's administration to pull wool over our eyes in what is yet the biggest conflict of interest case in the sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz. This controversial sale which passes as nothing but a naked robbery of all Ghanaians by John Mahama to cover up his brother's indebtedness to the state is gradually gaining roots as our judiciary, the supposed last bastion of our democracy, has become a pawn in the hands of John Mahama's administration.


We believe Ghanaians must accept nothing short of complete reversal of the sale or demand revolution of accountability through the 2016 ballot. If the institutions of the nation have become weak and compromised by the ever dominating executive powers, then power must revert to the people to demand justice. John Mahama must be made to pay heavily for this in 2016.


It is evidently clear that if you lift the veil covering the entire stinky deal between Merchant Bank and Fortiz, you uncover none other than the corrupt circle of John Mahama, Ibrahim Mahama and Tony Lithur. With Tony Lithur being the lawyer for John Mahama and Ibrahim Mahama and Fortiz, there can never be a better case of conflict of interest than to allow the same three persons to connive and steal a national asset in favour of covering up the debt of a Engineers and Planners (Ibrahim Mahama's company)


The conflict of interest even becomes more apparent when one looks at the composition of Fortiz. It is made up of Mr. Mawuli Hedo who owns 51% of Fortiz and who is also the Executive Director of FirstBanc Financial Service which acted as the transaction advisors to Fortiz in the purchase of Merchant Bank. FirstBanc is licensed Pension Fund Manager owned by Mr. Ato Ahwoi and which runs Merchant Bank. Apart from the conflict of interest in this matter it is also criminal as his involvement is considered as inside dealing in law.


The next majority shareholder in Fortiz is Angela Hedo, the wife of Mr. Mawuli Hedo who owns 29% of Fortiz and who is a special assistant to the Minister of Justice and Attorneys General. She also works in Lithur & Brew Chambers as a Junior Staff. The third shareholder is Doris Benueme who owns 20% of Fortiz and who is a Togolese national. These persons who comprise Fortiz are either inside dealers in Merchant Bank, foreigners or close associates to Tony Lithur and Mahama's government.

Why should our courts and Parliament allow such acts of conflict of interest go on in our country? The executive has clearly compromised this sale and they are not even not making any secret of it all.


In one swipe Parliament per its majority has dismissed a motion for investigation into the matter citing the fact that the matter is before the courts. The courts have dismissed an application to stop the sale, citing locus standi and the executive have refused to stop it clearly because it has interest in it. Our media have also lost the will to fight as the fourth realm of the state.


The Trades Union Congress now says it has uncovered some fresh "damning" information which has "strengthened its resolve to challenge the controversial sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz in court." The question now is why did the TUC not join Andrew Awuni when it became an open secret that the court was going to throw the matter out due to Awuni's lack of locus? The truth is that the TUC and organised labour were part of the deal that led to the sale, its General Secretary having been put on the Divestiture Implementation Board to keep him silent.


The TUC is now trying to close the stable doors after the horses have bolted and they are going to use a decoy court case to stall any actions by the civil society. They must not be trusted.


We are also following with profound interest the pronouncements coming from people like Justice William Atuguba who championed peace and cowed the nation with the whip of “contempt” ahead of justice now calling for social justice and revolution in Ghana. He is quoted to have said recently in Kumasi "Those who downplay the importance of social justice from time to time are bound to be rudely awakened to the magnitude of that error by events not only that have locally happened in Ghana; I refer to the several coup d’états or revolutions…they were all based on denials of social justice... I therefore, urge that in Ghana everybody should rise to claim the state for his own…sometimes we feel that government is not proactive when it comes to expanding the frontiers of social justice in the form of access to justice delivery but sometimes the fault comes from ourselves." We believe that this statement by Justice Atuguba is a testimony of the justification of the NPP in seeking the 2012 Elections review in the courts and the fact that the NDC is incapable of governing our country.

We are therefore demanding that President John Mahama must reverse the sale, and short of which we “should rise to claim the state for (our) own” and demand that must go as he has shown he is incapable of making good judgements for the people of Ghana.


NPP UK Branch


London