K.B Asante: Bring facts of Merchant Bank case to public domain
Retired diplomat, Mr K.B. Asante, has described the Merchant Bank as a national asset that must be sold only if there are good reasons for that.
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He has, therefore, challenged the media to lead the campaign to bring the facts to the public domain.
He has also called for the heads of the directors of Merchant Bank, whose action or inaction has led to the seeming collapse of the bank.
He gave his views on the controversial sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz Equity Limited on Asempa FM's Ekosii Sen? programme.
The retired diplomat said the bank, which held a lot of promise and was hitherto the beacon of Ghana's economic development, should not be allowed to collapse while directors walked scot-free.
Instead of accusing political heads, Mr Asante insisted that the directors of the bank must be held responsible for the sorry state of the bank.
Fortiz is seeking to buy 90 per cent of the Merchant Bank shares at a cost of GH¢90 million, an amount described as pittance by critics.
The Andrew Awuni-led Centre for Freedom and Accuracy is in court challenging the sale of the bank.
The centre argues that a South African bank, First Rand, made a better offer of $90 million [180 million cedis] for 75 per cent shares and that should have been considered.
Mr Asante was in court last Thursday to witness the opening arguments for the application for injunction brought against the sale of Merchant Bank but the case was adjourned to December 5, to allow the biggest shareholder in the bank, SSNIT, to be served with the application and for it to respond accordingly.
Even before the court would commence hearing of the injunction application, the diplomat is convinced Ghanaians have a bigger responsibility to protect the interest of the national asset.
Without taking sides for or against the sale of the bank, the former minister of state in the Nkrumah government said it was time for the facts on the sale to be revealed.
He said Ghanaians must not wait until the bank was completely sold before they hold politicians accountable.
He, therefore, argued that if the assertion that the sale was not done properly was true and Ghanaians were being short-changed, then everybody must be of help to get to the bottom of the matter.
