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Alert! Omni Bank Acquires GhIPSS? Other Matters Arising

Feature Article Alert! Omni Bank Acquires GhIPSS? Other Matters Arising
MAR 15, 2017 LISTEN

There is credible information to the effect that Omni Bank, owned by the CEO of Zoomlion Joseph Siaw Agyepong, has almost sealed a deal with the central bank, the Bank of Ghana (BOG), for the sale and purchase of BOG’s shares in Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GHIPSS)

If this deal finally goes through, it would be necessary to investigate, particularly because of the quick manner Omni Bank was allegedly sponsored to mature rapidly, as to engage in all manner of transactions, including the takeover of very sensitive and lucrative national assets like this one, GHIPSS. In the words of the bank’s M.D, Phillip Oti-Mensah, “We have grown our capital from 4 million cedis to over 140 million in the shortest period. Just three years ago, we were at the bottom, but now we are number one.”

How did that happen and who pulled the strings? In the next 3 years, they hope to increase their capital assets from 140 million to over 3 billion Ghana Cedis. Is this genuinely possible in a highly competitive and choked banking system, especially for a new industry entrant? So this is where our state regulators ought to sit up, more so when the owners of the same bank have a record of allegedly purchasing state assets like the Akwatia Diamond and refusing to pay.

The second reason that the sale of BOG’s shares in GHIPSS must be discontinued is that the owner of the bank, Joseph Siaw Agyepong, had been involved in too many scandals and corruption related issues. In the GYEEDA Scandal of 2013, two of his companies featured prominently. On page 138 of the Ministerial Impact Assesment & Review Report on GYEEDA, the committee made two key recommendations about Zoomlion and its subsidiaries that were service providers. It was advised that the deal with Better Ghana Management Services Ltd should be terminated in accordance with the provisions in the contract as it did not provide value for money. It, again, recommended that considering the expiration of the waste and sanitation contract with ZOOMLION, this contract should be subjected to competitive bidding, rationalised against a separate existing contract by the same Service Provider with the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to avoid duplication and reduce chances of overcharge.

Then in the multi-million dollar scandal with Subah Infosolutions Ltd in which rather bizarre circumstances Subah managed to secure a contract to earn millions of cedis in a service that was already being provided free-of-charge by AFRIWAVE. On 26th October, 2013, www.citifmonline.com reported as ffs:

“Available evidence shows that the company did absolutely no work for the people of Ghana to merit the average GHc4 million it received monthly from the tax watchdog. Our crack team of investigators looking hard at piles of files and account records of Subah InfoSolutions has uncovered various payments by the company to a number of institutions and individuals”.

Regrettably however, the NDC government, then, did nothing to halt the mess involving Subah even after several experts had condemned that particular contract. For example, the President of Policy think-tank, IMANI Ghana, was reported to have remarked on 14th May, 2014 by the Chronicled newspaper that “I don’t want to call it a fraud, but I am extremely worried about government’s acceptance of the report, which is a broad day robbery”.

The Imani President also noted with interest that the law that gives backing to the communications service tax, which gave birth to the contract, was actually passed in July 2013. “Again, you couldn’t be working before the law was actually passed for the very activity you were supposed to undertake,” he noted. In October 2013, The Chronicle reported that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) had paid a whopping GH¢144 million to Subah Infosolutions Limited for allegedly monitoring revenues generated by the telecom companies.

The calculation was based on a monthly payment of GH¢4 million. Information obtained at the time indicated that the GRA contracted SUBAH INFOSOLUTIONS LIMITED somewhere in 2010 to electronically monitor revenue generated by the telecom companies to enable them calculate and collect the right taxes from the companies. The contract was worth $100 million per year.

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