Movement For Truth And Accountability Drags Money Laundering Bank Managers To Special Prosecutor

Accra-based anti-corruption pressure group, the Movement for Truth and Accountability (MT&A) has announced it is petitioning the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) over the complicity of some rogue bank managers in the activities of a syndicate of money laundering companies.

At a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, the group said it had gathered evidence that an axis of money laundering companies who manipulate Import Declaration Forms to launder money include rogue bank managers.

“We know for a fact that most of these bank managers who made transfers to these alleged companies knew very well that the Import Declaration Form they brought to them for transfers were fake yet they went ahead to transfer. We have evidence to prove, so we are sending this evidence to the Special Prosecutor for them to be arrested because it is a criminal offense,” Samuel Bediako, the Communications Director of the MT&A stated.

Mr. Bediako did not name any banks though, saying doing so might be unfair to an impartial investigation by the SP.

The press conference was a follow-up to an earlier whistleblower revelation by the group that a syndicate of rogue companies has been manipulating Import Declaration Forms to launder money.

What these companies, mostly import and export companies do, according to information, is that they receive the IDFs from the government claiming they intend to import a stated amount of a given good.

However, they import far less than the IDF allows. This then creates room for them to import other goods to other destinations of choice.

Within this mix are money laundering and tax evasion. According to the GRA, in 2019 alone up to US$1.8billion was illegally transferred around.

It is said that up to 1,800 companies are involved with the GRA saying that it has at least 200 companies under investigation.

According to sources, the actions of these companies are downright criminal and in breach of Ghana’s Anti-Money Laundering Act, Act 798 as amended by Amendment Act, 2014 (Act 874).

The MT&A said the operations of the ring have various moving parts with the GRA itself, the Akufo-Addo Jubilee House and banks in complicity.

At the Tuesday press conference, the MT&A named some of the companies involved.

In October 2017, the law firm Globetrotters Legal Africa, wrote a petition to the then Director-General of the GRA, Stephen Nti, to complain on behalf of several importers whose businesses have been crippled by the preferential treatment given La Bianca.

“The wide disparity created by the grant of these values has resulted in the laying off workers threatening to push many of the members of our Client’s organization out of business due to huge losses sustained between July-September 2017,” the law firm wrote.

“For the above reason, our Clients petitions your office to revise the benchmark values by replacing them with the preferential values attached from now to December 2017 while you take steps to implement a transparent valuation system, to save the industry.”