The Today Newspaper can report that in September 2020, after receiving and reviewing a petition from Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo agreed to appoint a mediator to resolve all the issues between Dr. Nduom on one hand; and the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on the other.
The appointment of the mediator was contained in a letter sent to Dr. Nduom signed by the President’s Secretary, Nana Asante Bediatuo.
Our question is, if the President in his infinite wisdom and as the ultimate decision maker decided that Dr. Nduom’s petition about the revocation of his companies’ licences by the SEC and BoG should be resolved through mediation, why has his people not cooperated with the Mediator to resolve the issues presented? Why are the cases still in court and after three years, why has the Mediation lost steam? Which people believe that they are more powerful than the President of the nation to decide to ignore his directives?
Our checks show that rather than dealing with the directives of the President, certain high level officials appointed by him have rather spent the good part of the past four years combing through the documents of GN Bank/Savings and have tried to entice former employees looking for dirt they can find to charge Dr. Nduom, directors and management with crimes. At the very least, they are unhappy that Dr. Nduom took the BoG and others to court and so are looking for revenge. Some of them have said that if nothing at all, they want to embarrass Dr. Nduom.
The Secretary to the President wrote to Dr. Nduom on 19th October 2020 to inform him about the President’s appointment of Mr. Felix Addo, retired Senior Partner of PWC as Mediator “… to assist the parties to resolve all outstanding issues between them.” The parties referred to are Dr. Nduom, the BoG, the SEC and the Ministry of Finance.
Dr. Nduom in his letter dated 28th October 2020, wrote that, “I have noted the President’s appointment of Mr. Felix Addo as Mediator “… to assist the parties to resolve all outstanding issues between them. I accept this appointment in the spirit that it has been made and will put a team together led by Dr. Nana Kweku Nduom to cooperate fully by making themselves readily available to meet Mr. Addo and also provide to him all the documents he will require. It will be good to get the Terms of Reference to enable our team to prepare well to facilitate the Mediator’s work.
It is my hope that Mr. Addo will examine our claim that state agencies owe several contractors funded by Groupe Nduom companies millions of Ghana Cedis which, when paid, will provide the liquidity needed to service the needs of our customers.”
To his credit, Mr. Felix Addo set to work in a professional and diligent manner. He convened a series of meetings with the President’s lawyer Mr. Kow Essuman in attendance.
It is our understanding that the Ministry of Finance removed themselves as a party to the mediation and asked to only observe even though the SEC indicated that they act on instructions from that Ministry.
The BoG refused to participate in the negotiations stating in a letter dated 23rd July 2021 that it was not bound by law to participate in mediation to resolve issues with other parties.
This paper later found out that the BoG’s lawyers led by Mr. Frank Davies had sought arbitration as a means to resolve the issues between the central bank and the shareholders of GN Bank/GN Savings.
We have reproduced some of the correspondence related to this matter for the information of our readers.
The Today Newspaper has several more documents related to this topic. Part 4 of this story and many more including the roles played by a number of officials including Cabinet are under review for future publication.
