The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has insisted that no money from the central bank was given to private equity firm, Fortiz in the acquisition of Merchant bank.<\/p>\n
The Minority alleged that the pension funds of public sector workers were given to Fortiz to buy the then distressed Merchant Bank.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”Jv5e08UAwlBdw070aaxxooiXNLidbjR5″]The government debunked these claims<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, insisting that the money was intact and being kept at the BoG.<\/p>\n Speaking on behalf of the BoG, the Governor of the central bank, Dr Henry Kofi Wampah has also debunked the allegations.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cAs far as I am aware, we didn\u2019t give anything to Fortiz and Fortiz cannot take any money directly from us.\u201d<\/p>\n According to him, the tier two pensions account belongs to the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) which has the sole authority to give instructions on how the funds in the account can be utilized.<\/p>\n \u201cSo Fortiz cannot walk into the Bank of Ghana and say give me money to go and invest in another bank,\u201d he intimated.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Dr Wampah has confirmed that\u00a0 monies accrued in\u00a0the tier two pensions account at the BoG currently stands at GHC 1.6 billion.<\/p>\n \u201cAs at last week when these issues came up, I checked and was given a print out. The total holdings are about GHC 1.6 billion; that is those in investments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He disclosed that the NPRA has three accounts at the central bank where proceeds from the tier two pensions are deposited and kept.<\/p>\n The BoG Governor added that there is also an amount of GHC 11 million cash in the three accounts.<\/p>\n \u201cBut they don\u2019t allow the monies to sit in the account for long because of obvious reasons. They want to earn interests.\u201d<\/p>\n The bank, he said then invests the funds based on the directive from the Authority.<\/p>\n \u201cWe invest them in instruments; mainly government instruments, treasury bills and so on,\u201d Dr. Wampah explained.<\/p>\n The government and some 12 labour unions are battling it out in the law courts over the management and payment of the tier two pension funds of public sector workers.<\/p>\n The workers a few weeks ago, embarked on an indefinite strike to force the government to change managers of the fund and also pay the monies into their own registered scheme.<\/p>\n A court order secured by government forced the workers to resume work<\/strong><\/span><\/a> but negotiations \u00a0have resulted in a deadlock<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n The two parties have since gone back to the court<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0to get the issues resolved.<\/p>\n They are also demanding an audit into the NPRA’s account at the BoG<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>to ascertain the exact amount which has accrued in the account.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Efua Idan Osam\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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