Casely Hayford: $2.2 million bond “perfectly transparent”

Financial analyst Sydney Casely Hayford has defended the recent $2.2 billion bond issued which has become a subject of controversy.

According to him, the central bank has published the list of bonds they plan to issue, slamming the Minority for claiming the deal lacked transparency.

“The bond is issued by the Central Bank, it is not issued by Ken Ofori Atta…The bottom line is this, the transaction is perfectly transparent because it is done through the Central Bank, and anybody who wants to know, you can go to the Central Bank today and you can find the list of all the bonds they plan to issue,” he said on Citi FM’s “The Big Issue.”

The Minority had alleged at a press conference last week that the $2.2 billion was shrouded in secrecy, calling for a parliamentary probe.

They further threatened to petition CHRAJ for investigations, citing a conflict of interest in the issuance of the bond.

Casely Hayford criticised the Minority as unfit to raise the issue of conflict of interest. According to him, the National Democratic Congress MPs did not criticise the contracts awarded to Ibrahim Mahama when his brother, former president John Mahama, was the leader of Ghana.

“The conflict of interest issue occurs all over and has occurred all over this landscape that we have today. The question we have to ask is, is the NDC qualified to come now and criticize what is going on, when previously, there have been instances in which they themselves have been involved and in which they have never discussed,” he said.

“Take, for instance, you are the President of this country and your brother happens to be one of the major players in construction in the country and he keeps winning major contracts, sizeable ones, juicy ones, is it a conflict of interest?” he quizzed.