GIPC boss sacked

Robert Ahomka-Lindsay CITY & BUSINESS GUIDE can confirm that Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) has been asked to proceed on leave.

The CEO of GIPC, whose dismissal has been rumored in the media in recent times, according to this paper's information, has accepted the decision to vacate his position.

With this development, the release of the quarterly report on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) could not take place.

Indications were that he met President John Evans Atta Mills yesterday at the Castle, Osu, to iron out a few issues regarding his tenure at GIPC.

Mr. Ahomka-Lindsay was appointed by former President John Agyekum Kufuor to head the GIPC in 2007 but his presence at the investment center has been characterized by several agitations by workers, who have oftentimes cited him for egotism.

Nevertheless, Mr. Ahomka-Lindsay, an astute banker and a trade expert with vast experience, has succeeded in turning GIPC into a more viable investment house.

For instance, in the first three months of the 2008 fiscal year, GIPC recorded a total of $460.7 million in new investments. This was made up of $442.6 million cash investments of which $442.6 million constituted re-investments and $7.98m, being equity transfers.

The increased investment was projected to have created employment opportunities for 9,707 people as against 2,082 jobs created over the same period in 2007, constituting an increase of 300 percent.

Since then, GIPC has been consistently registering growth in new investments, some of which have been telecommunication giants Zain and Globacom.

Mr. Ahomka-Lindsay is presently the Board Chairman of CAL Bank. He was a regional director for CDC Group Private Equity Partners in London, covering the territories of East Africa and the horn of Africa, when he decided to pursue his Executive MBA at the Chicago GSB campus in Barcelona.

Based in the U.K, he traveled between offices in Nairobi, London, and Atlanta.

According to him, he found benefits from having a degree from the internationally recognized University of Chicago behind him. And, thanks to the international make-up of the programme, “I have friends in every country and city I can think of”.

By Charles Nixon Yeboah