[ 2015-04-15 ]

AfDB’s ‘Tripple Error’ …Ghana Was Warned 3 Times On Arrears Before Sanctions Were Imposed
Documents emanating from reliable sources at the
Africa Development Bank (AfDB) and in possession
of The New Crusading GUIDE have rekindled the
widely held perception that the reputable bank a
couple of weeks ago clearly attempted to save its
skin as well as the Government of Ghana over
sanctions imposed over the country for her
indebtedness.

According to the letter dated 27th January, 2015,
and under the heading, THIRD AND LAST REMINDER,
SUBJECT: LOANS ARREARS ON BILLS DUE ON 01 JANUARY
2015, the bank reminded Samuel D. Ameyaw, Director
of Debt Management of Ghana’s indebtedness in
different currencies to the bank and the need to
redeem them lest the country faced sanctions.

“We wish to remind you that as of today, we have
not received full payment in respect of Bank Group
bills, as per the attached Arrears Report. We
count on your prompt action for the timely
settlement of the amounts due to enable the
clearance of the arrears. We would appreciate if
you could provide details of any payment made.
Please note that sanctions will be imposed if full
payment of the arrears is not received by the end
of the month”, the letter signed by Josselyne
Ahogny, Division Manager of the Bank stated.

Coincidentally, it was the same Mr. Ameyaw who was
said by the Minister of Agriculture, Fiifi Kwettey
to have communicated the supposed error to the
bank somewhere in February, 2015. Interestingly,
Mr. Kwettey could not tell the public whether the
alert from Mr. Ameyaw to AfDB was in writing.

He claimed that hours after the Bank's attention
was drawn to the mistake, they issued another memo
correcting the error but that memo is also yet to
be made public.

Government functionaries including some Ministers
of State insisted that at no point was Ghana in
arrears to the Bank and any letter which sought to
communicate a state of indebtedness should have
been dismissed.

Chronicling the dates and processes involved in
Ghana's debt settlement to AfDB, the Agric
Minister emphatically stated that Ghana had before
January 21, 2015 settled all its indebtedness to
the bank.

"As at December 10, 2014 the Ministry of Finance
had authorised the payment to the account of AfDB.
That is the beginning of the process. On December
17 payment warrant released and signed by the
Director of Budget. That is a fact and that is
verifiable. On December 23, 2014, the letter was
dispatched to the Controller and Accountant
General and from there it went to the Bank of
Ghana”.

"The first payment was done. Four currency
payments were done and they were swift payments
which were sent to the account of the AfDB," he
narrated.

He said the Euro currency with a reference number
of FT1501510573 was paid into the account of the
AfDB on January 15, 2015.

On the same day, the Pounds version with reference
number FT1501568924 was sent to the HSBC. He said
the final payment in the Yen currency was made on
the 21st January.

After the lecture by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the
AfDB reacted in a terse press statement denying it
had suspended Ghana claiming that it was an
“administrative error” which was corrected
that same day on its official website.

However, there was nothing on the website of the
admission of error on the said date.

It seems the AFDB has in recent times been playing
actively in a comedy of errors as it had
communicated three different messages on the same
subject and turn around to say they were all in
error.

On February 18, 2015, the bank wrote to inform the
Government of Ghana that it had placed sanctions
on her for failing to make full payment in respect
of Bank Bills but turned round to say it had erred
in that communication. That communication came
just a day after it had issued a memo to all their
Directors naming Ghana as one of the countries
that owed the bank.

In the face of the clear embarrassment the
Government suffered after the lecture by the
former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, an
Inter-Office surfaced dated March 13, 2015 which
had another list of countries in debt with Ghana
this time around conspicuously missing.

Things got worse for both the bank and the
government when it came to light that both the
February 17, 2015 memo announcing the sanctions
placed on Ghana and the March 13, 2015 memo which
did not have Ghana on the list of countries in
arrears, bore the same reference number of
FFCO.4/JA/2015.

Many banking experts say it is a misnomer to have
two different memos bear the same reference
numbers.

“It raises eyebrows especially because both
memos were issued at least a month adrift. Clearly
something is fishy somewhere”, one expert told
this paper.

Source - New Crusading Guide

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