Agyapa deal: Imara’s involvement was a ‘smokescreen’ - Bright Simons
Bright Simons is vice president of IMANI Africa
Honourary vice-president at IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, has said the selection of Imara of South Africa as financial advisors for the now-suspended Agyapa Royalties deal was to hide sinister motives.
Read full article Bright Simons’ description is similar to the one offered by the Office of the Special Prosecutor after a corruption risk assessment on the deal.
“The Transaction Advisors, Imara Corporate Finance Limited (Pty) seems to be an ‘opaque surrogate of both the Ministry of Finance and Databank Financial Services Limited playing the role of Transaction Advisors,” the OSP said after its assessment.
Speaking about the deal that he criticised heavily when it was passed by a one-sided Parliament, Mr Simons said on Saturday that the masterminds of the minerals royalties agreement “hired these Imara people to serve as a smokescreen to be able to do three things: 1. To bring in Databank without going through the normal scrutiny 2. So that the deal team would actually be the directing mind and exercise influence over all these transactions while pretending to have delegated. 3. Evolve the mandate from a receivables-backed transaction to a stock market listing.”
IMANI Africa and Bright Simons were at the forefront of strong resistance to get the deal withdrawn before the OSP launched its risk of corruption assessment.
The deal, according to the Finance Ministry, would leverage Ghana’s mineral deposits by securitising future flows of revenue with proceeds from Ghana’s extractive sector.
According to the Ministry, the deal forms part of the many strategies it has adopted to beat the long-standing problem of lack of capital for developmental projects.
However, critics of the deal like the Minority in Parliament and civil society groups like IMANI Africa had raised concerns about the value placed on Ghana’s extractive sector and which informs Ghana's revenue from the agreement.
Speaking on Saturday, November 7, 2020, on a current affairs programme on Joy News on the back of the damning revelations uncovered by the OSP, Bright Simons said the Finance Minister's reaction has been disappointing.
He said Ken Ofori Atta was acting “as if he does not understand the arguments the Special Prosecutor was making.”
“If we allow everyone to be able to circumvent the Public Procurement Authority that way, we might as well forget the Procurement law,” Bright Simons stated.
President Akufo-Addo has since directed the Finance Minister to take the agreement back to Parliament and rid it of the many infractions and problems identified with it by the OSP assessment.
