Agyapa agreement: Imara’s participation was a ‘smokescreen’

General news for Sunday, November 8, 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

2020-11-08

IMANI Africa Honorary Vice President Bright Simons has said that Imara of South Africa’s selection as financial advisor for the now-suspended Agyapa royalty deal was to conceal sinister motives.

Bright Simons’ description is similar to that offered by the Special Prosecutor’s Office after an assessment of the risk of corruption in the deal.

“The Transaction Advisers, Imara Corporate Finance Limited (Pty) appears to be an ‘opaque substitute for both the Ministry of Finance and Databank Financial Services Limited playing the role of Transaction Advisors,” the OSP said after its assessment.

Speaking about the deal that he harshly criticized when it was approved by a unilateral Parliament, Simons said Saturday that the masterminds of the mineral royalty deal “hired these people from Imara to serve as a smokescreen so they could do three things: 1. Incorporate the data bank without going through normal scrutiny. 2. So that the negotiation team is truly the guiding mind and influence over all these transactions while pretending to have delegated. 3. Evolve the mandate of a transaction backed by accounts receivable to a listing on the stock market “

IMANI Africa and Bright Simons were at the forefront of strong resistance to withdraw the deal before the OSP released its corruption risk assessment.

The deal, according to the Finance Ministry, would leverage Ghana’s mineral deposits by securitizing future revenue streams with revenues from Ghana’s extractive sector.

According to the Ministry, the agreement is one of the many strategies it has adopted to overcome the long-standing problem of lack of capital for development projects.

However, critics of the deal such as the Minority in Parliament and civil society groups like IMANI Africa had raised concerns about the value placed on Ghana’s extractive sector and that informs Ghana’s revenue from the deal.

Speaking on Saturday, November 7, 2020, in a current affairs program on Joy News about the damning revelations uncovered by the OSP, Bright Simons said the Finance Minister’s reaction has been disappointing.

He said Ken Ofori Atta was acting “as if he did not understand the arguments the Special Prosecutor was making.”

“If we allow everyone to bypass the Public Procurement Authority in that way, we better forget the Procurement law,” said Bright Simons.

Since then, President Akufo-Addo has directed the Finance Minister to bring the agreement to Parliament and remove it from the many infractions and problems identified with it by the OSP’s assessment.