Banking crisis: Ken Ofori Atta’s Amalgamated Trust Ltd. is a huge ‘419’ SCAM – Adongo explains

Minority ranking member of Finance, Isaac Adongo has described the Ghana Amalgamated Trust Limited as an outrageous waste of the tax payers’ money by the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori- Atta.


“Let me be upfront here that GAT is a complete scam, dubious arrangement and national tragedy knitted together by persons pretending to be interested in the wellbeing of Ghana but with a clear plan to get you and I to pay astronomically over the next five years so that Ken Ofori-Atta can take over these banks”, he revealed in his latest article about GAT.

In his review, the lawmaker for Bolgatanga Central maintained that the arrangement is dubious aimed at saddling the taxpayer with huge fiscal costs for no real value except to satisfy Ken Ofori-Atta.

“I will also expose how the entire arrangement is already cooked up for Franklin Templeton (FT) Plc of the 2017 Ken Bond fame to come and take”, he threatened.


GAT IS A SCAM AND AN EXPENSIVE FISCAL WASTE

In January this year, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana announced that private pension funds have come together in a private arrangement to help these banks recapitalise after they failed to do so by the close of 31st December, 2018 being the deadline for recapitalisation. At the time, we were told that this would occasion no costs to the state. Several questions were asked about the ownership of GAT and who those private funds behind it were. These were never answered to date.

To date, Government has not answered the question of the ownership of GAT. Who are the so called private pension funds behind it and what are their names? What is the ownership structure among those fund management companies?Interestingly the pension funds come out to claim that they were neither aware nor consulted on GAT. So, who are the owners?

Information at the Registrar General’s Department reveal that GAT was incorporated in December 17 2018 with the National Trust Holding Company Limited (NTHC) as a 100 per cent nominee shareholder on behalf of the government of Ghana. Interestingly, the NTHC is owned by the Social Security & National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) – 43.48%; the State Insurance Company (SIC) – 19.70%; the National Investment Bank (NIB) – 19.70%, the AccreCon Consulting – 12.39%; and the NTHC PF – 4.73%.

Thus, how can GAT be a private sector initiative when even its nominee shareholder is a majority state-owned entity? Is the government and the Bank of Ghana Governor saying that the supposed private sector investors could not, on their own, incorporate a vehicle to take advantage of an opportunity but had to rely on the government to identify such an opportunity, establish a SPV and then hand it over to them through a dubious scheme to then use to supposedly salvage five banks, including two national banks? Obviously, GAT is a state-owned entity and as such, its debts must count fiscal costs to the state.