Mahama, Rawlings Missing At Kumasi Independence Celebration

Former presidents John Dramani Mahama and Jerry John Rawlings were conspicuously seen missing at the independence event in Kumasi event to mark 63 years of Ghana’s divorce from colonial rule.

Whatsup News has seen empty seats meant for the two ex-President. Former President Mahama was positioned to sit beside the ageing former president John Agyekum Kufour of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) who was present at the occasion.

No official reason has yet been ascribed to the absence of these two high-profile guests from the side of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). 

Incidentally, there are only three living Ghanaian ex-Presidents; two from the NDC and one from the NPP. Only the NPP ex-President showed up.

Kumasi in the Ashanti Region is the electoral stronghold of the governing NPP, the fact that the absentee ex-presidents are from the NDC camp has raised wild speculations.

This year’s event is being held in the Ashanti Regional capital of Kumasi for the first time in the history of Independence celebration in the country.

In attendance of today’s colourful event was the Ashanti Monarch, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, while the Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Dr Keith Christopher Rowley is the Guest of Honour.

Meanwhile, it was not just the ex-presidents on the NDC camp that were absent, many of the executives of the party were glaringly absent too.

Most of the Minority Members of Parliament were absent in what is being speculated as a deliberate boycott.

NDUOM Smells Rat in Receivers’ Claim of Payment to Customers

The founder of Groupe Nduom Group whose bank and Savings and Loans company was closed down, has raised suspicions about claims by receivers of his financial institution that they have paid his stranded customers.

To be sure, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom has asked his lawyers, Archbridge Solicitors to write to the Receiver for the 23 collapsed savings and loans companies and Finance Houses, Eric Nana Nipah, to provide further and better particulars to his claimed settlement of funds owned stranded customers.

Dr. Nduom’s lawyers want the Receiver Among the issues, the solicitors are looking at discussing include the particulars such as the name, category of investment and amounts of the customers or depositors who have put in claims for their monies; the details of what the Receiver has been able to pay out to the customers or depositors who have put in such claims.

The lawyers also want information on the loans and other credits they have been able to collect from debtors since August 16, 2019.

The solicitors are also asking for the statement of GN Savings and Loans’ financial position as at February 29, 2020; and any other related issue or information.

“We will be available for such a meeting during the working hours of any day from Wednesday, March 11 through to Tuesday, March 31, 2020. Alternatively, you may supply the information in respect of the above issues through us to our Clients within the period which we have indicated in Paragraph 5 of this letter,” the solicitors requested in the letter.

The Receiver last Monday claim he had started paying out customers their locked-up funds from some GHC5 billion reportedly made available by the government.

According to the Consolidated Bank Ghana(CBG) the bank mandated to make the payments, as of Friday, February 28, 2020, over 13,000 customers had been paid fully.

The bank added that the number of customers paid included 490 companies, 581 social organizations, 174 financial institutions, and 48 financial security institutions.

However, some critics are in doubt of these figures and statement being made by the receiver, the CBG and the government.

The Bank of Ghana revoked the license of GN Savings and Loans in August 2019, saying “GN’s shareholders have failed to restore the bank to the required regulatory capital and liquidity levels in spite of long-standing promises that new capital was expected from foreign investors.”

GN and 22 others were affected by that round of license revocation which has tallied to over 350 savings and loans, non-bank financial institutions, investment brokers and Universal banks since 2018.

Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost and a lot more people have lost their investments in a financial sector clean-up that has been fraught with controversies.