The Minority members in parliament were not factual in their comments on the loan granted to MacDan Shipping Company by the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Deputy Minister of Information, has said.
The Minority had accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of blatant disregard for the procurement laws of the country in the award of contracts and loans.
This follows the alleged approval of a GHS10,459,500 million loan from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) to the MacDan Shipping Company by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta.
Addressing the media on Tuesday, September 5, Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, said the action of the Finance Minister is a breach of the procurement processes and rules since most of the boards and Council of State institutions have not been constituted, including the ADB Board.
“Serious questions arise as to whether they have demonstrated respect to our procurement processes. Was the contract awarded using the sole-sourcing process? If the answer is yes, then the law requires the approval by the Public Procurement Authority. Where is the board of the Public Procurement Authority? We are not aware that it has been constituted,” he stated.
But speaking on the Super Morning Show on Accra-based Joy FM on Wednesday, September 6 Mr Oppong Nkrumah said: “Mr Haruna Iddrisu said there was no due diligence conducted by the bank before the transaction. It is not true.
“The bank did its normal business and decided that its client, Mac Dan Shipping, was qualified to get a credit facility to do its business. And the bank wrote on June 6, 2017 to shareholders of the bank because their board had not been constituted, not necessarily because somebody had declined to constitute the board but because the shareholders were having conversation about who was majority still, because there was an attempt to take some of the shares from government and the other shareholders were saying that they were now majority.
“At this point there is no board, ADB now writes to shareholders and says Mac Dan Shipping Company is one of the bank’s most valued customers and the bank’s credit committee has considered and recommended the approval of credit facility to the customer for its business operations.”
Source:Ghana/AccraFM/com
