[ 2014-11-26 ]

Ken Ofori Atta

Ken Ofori Atta speaks on Obotan deal
The brain behind the famous Obotan Project, Ken
Ofori-Atta, is not happy about recent media
reports which seek to portray him as a fraudster.

The Obotan Project was a proposed construction of
a gated community on the Independence Avenue in
Accra, hatched in 1998.

It was devised by a group of investors and
promoters, including Ken, and sought financial
backing from other investors, including SSNIT, but
could not take off due to some setbacks.

In a statement, Ken said, “Over the last few
weeks, I have been subjected to a deliberate,
politically motivated, unpatriotic, and shameful
campaign of harassment and defamation at the hands
of certain government officials, journalists,
media outlets, including the Daily Post, The
Republic, The Daily Dispatch, and The Insight.”


He believed this to be part of a grand agenda to
divert
attention from the government’s inability to
tell Ghanaian workers where their ‘pension
money’ had been placed.



Justification

Instead, he explained that “Contrary to false
and malicious media reports, the Obotan Project
was a credible development project and each of the
stakeholders was determined to make the project a
success” and that “there is no basis
whatsoever for alleging that the project was any
kind of fraud.”

“SSNIT was not defrauded of their investment in
any shape or form and, in fact, as set out below,
SSNIT’s equity in the Obotan Project was
subsequently purchased by Databank when it
transpired that SSNIT was not going to be in a
position to continue in their role in the Project.
The reason for this is that from 2000 onwards,
SSNIT became beleaguered by allegations and
investigations into their portfolio of
investments,” he emphasized.

Consequently, Mr. Ken Ofori Atta indicated that
“The Obotan Project was stalled and during that
period we approached them in order to buy out
SSNIT’s equity stake in the Project.”

He further stated that following an initial
failure to respond to a first offer to acquire
their shares in the project, SSNIT decided to
negotiate the sale of their equity stake
in 2005 and that “contrary to media reports that
‘pension money’ (i.e. the SSNIT investment)
was ‘stolen’, it is a matter of fact
that SSNIT’s investment was purchased by
Databank through a negotiated purchase of their
equity interest evidenced by an agreement dated
31st August 2005.”



Reason

According to Mr Ofori-Atta, who is co-founder of
the Databank Group, “payment under the agreement
was made between June 2004 and February 2007”
with the precise amount paid to SSNIT under the
agreement being US$2,224,000.00 - the dollar
equivalent of the Cedi value paid by SSNIT in 1999
– as subscription and commission for its shares,
and an additional US$78,680.00 as interest.”

He therefore, insisted that “SSNIT got back
every pesewa (or cent) it invested in the
Obotan Project, plus interest.”

In return, the statement said, “SSNIT
transferred all its shares in Obotan to Databank
Financial Services by a Deed of Transfer in
2007” with the Deed of Transfer witnessed by
Ernest Thompson, the General Manager and General
Counsel of SSNIT at the time, who happens to be
SSNIT’s Director-General today.

In this light, the businessman said, “There is
no evidential basis for any allegation of fraud in
connection with the Project” whiles noting with
emphasis that “the draft SFO Report, which has
been referred to in various media, was
fundamentally flawed, incompetent and misconceived
in many respects.”

This, he said, was due to the fact that “it
ignored the basic entrepreneurial concept that
ideas, design and land as equity from one party
can serve as more than sufficient basis for
attracting other investors and negotiating a
shareholding structure for a project.”



Action

Eventually, Ken noted that SSNIT sold its shares
in the Project after negotiations, led by their
then external lawyer, Mr. S. Kwami Tetteh, for
which reason he stated, “References made by
certain government officials and certain
journalists and the reportage by certain media
houses, suggesting criminality on my part, is
nothing but a diversionary tactic by the
government to avoid telling workers where their
‘pension money’ is.

Sometime last week, Ken said he received a call
from a person who described himself as a BNI
officer, and so was not surprised that news of his
supposed ‘arrest’ was announced prematurely to
the public by a government communicator on a
popular radio station.

He therefore maintained, “I will not be
surprised
that I could be arrested just as happened to the
Managing Director of Citi FM, Samuel Atta-Mensah,
a couple of days ago, by the BNI in order to
further the malicious campaign against me.”

The man has since served notice, “I am preparing
legal action against the various publications and
persons who have defamed me and hereby warn any
media house, which intends to publish further
libelous material about me, that I will have no
hesitation in taking legal action against them.”

Source - Daily Guide

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