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The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has said that the recent 2.25 billion dollar bond was processed without violating the laws of Ghana.
He said this on the floor of Parliament when he was summoned by the House to fully disclose details of the bond.
His summons follow a half-hour motion passed by Parliament for him to provide full disclosure on the bond issuance. The Minority in the House had accused the Minister of Finance of shrouding the bond in secrecy.
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However, he said the allegations by the minority may only be a result of a genuine lack of understanding of the processes of bond issuance.
Mr Ofori Atta said, the issuance was transparent and was done in accordance with how bonds and government securities have been issued over the years.
He added that that the Ministry of Finance, “had no direct dealings with investors” during the issuance of the bond.
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“All prospective bidders bid through their primary dealers, who in turn submitted the investor’s bids through the Central Securities Depository platform. The joint transaction advisers then collate these bids to build up a book on which the bonds are issued. At no time during the book building process did the Ministry of Finance negotiate with any investor in any way, and it will indeed be quite difficult to manipulate the process when the three financial institutions are governed strictly by the Bank of Ghana’s rules and regulations.”
Mr Ofori-Atta added that “there were no breaches of integrity either on government’s part or on the joint book runner’s part.”
“It may be tempting to say that the apparent attempt to manufacture some form of integrity deficit is generally borne out of a lack of understanding of the actual process,” he added.
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In a related development, the Minority in Parliament was not satisfied with the depth of information provided by the Finance Minister.
Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Ato Forson, argued that the Minister failed to respond to relational interests between himself and an alleged Director of Franklin Templeton.
Background
The Minority in Parliament have raised several concerns about the transparency or otherwise of the $2.25 billion domestic bond government issued.
They have alleged that the process has been shrouded in secrecy and also raised alarms of conflict of interest against the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta.
The Minority alleged that a non-executive director on the Board of Investment Firm, Franklin Templeton, which purchased 95 percent of the bond, is also the Chairman of the Enterprise Group, which has links to the Attorney-General and the Finance Minister.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo has denied knowledge of the said bond.
This was after a Private Legal Practitioner, Victor Adawudu asked to be furnished with details on the bond which was issued in April.
The AG said the details on the said bond the Lawyer was requesting for were unavailable to her.