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Awuni files injunction to restrain SSNIT, Fortis and others

 

Mr Andrew Awuni has filed for an interlocutory injunction to restrain the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and the Fortis Private Equity Fund Ltd from taking any step in executing a deed of transfer of SSNIT’s 90 per cent shares in Merchant Bank Limited as a result of a share sale and purchase agreement (SSPA).

The writ, filed on Mr Awuni’s behalf by Faibille and Faibille, is also seeking an order to restrain the defendants from amending the said SSPA and also an order of injunction restraining the Bank of Ghana (BoG) from giving any further approval in whatever form or description to SSNIT and Fortis and towards arriving at a final conclusion of/and/or concluding the sale and purchase of 90 per cent of SSNIT’s 90.6 per cent shares in Merchant Bank pending the final determination of the suit.

Other defendants cited in the writ are KPMG Ghana, Mrs Marian Barnor, Mr Joe Tetteh, Prof Bill Pupulampu and five other persons, all former board members.

According to the affidavit, the manner of the arranged sale of 90 per cent of SSNIT's 90.6 per cent shares to Fortis had become the subject of diverse public commentary and discourse.

It said SSNIT, obviously reeling from the sting in the public commentary, bought space in sections of the print media and issued a statement which had rather stirred more controversy than before. 

It said the decision by SSNIT to buy space and issue the statement aforementioned without more showed that it recognised its trustee role in the collection, management and investment of pension funds from contributors to the scheme to whom it owed an obligation to make only prudent investments.

The affidavit said the decision by SSNIT to sell 90 per cent of its 90.6 per cent shares in Merchant Bank to Fortis was not a prudent and wise investment in relation to the value being paid to it by Fortis.

According to the affidavit, the National Pensions Regulatory Authority had not furnished any guidelines to SSNIT in respect of the investment policy justifying the sale of the shares to Fortis.

It said that KPMG’s  valuation of SSNIT’s 90 per cent shares out of its 90.6 per cent shares to be sold to Fortis could not be and “is not a true valuation of the said shares, such that I, as a contributor to SSNIT's pension scheme, is not getting good value for the investment”.

It said notwithstanding all those critical issues, SSNIT and Fortis proceeded to execute the SSPA on or about November 22, 2013 as a first step in the acquisition of SSNIT’s 90 per cent shares.

It argued that unless restrained by the court, SSNIT and Fortis would proceed to finalise the entire deal on the guidelines provided by the BoG “to complete the said deal which amounts to short-changing and overreaching plaintiff as a contributor to the social security fund, when there were other better options that would result in value for money of the shares sold to be obtained for the benefit of contributors to the pension fund operated by SSNIT by law for and on my behalf and others, while the Bank of Ghana readies itself to give final approval to the entire deal”.

“That, without doubt, I will suffer the most from this bad and dubious sale, as compared to SSNIT, which will not be paid from pension funds at any point in time in its life,” it said

 

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