The former governor of the BoG will pursue a BNP officer for blaming him for the Menzgold crisis

General News on Thursday, January 17, 2019

Source: rainbowradioonline.com

2019-01-17

Johnson P. Asiama, former governor of the Bank of Ghana, led Omarie Waadie, 3rd Vice President of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), in front of the cleaning agents, for blaming him for the Menzgold crisis.

In a statement, the former governor denied any badociation with Menzgold.

"My attention has just been drawn to a roundtable that took place on JoyNews Live around 4:30 pm today (January 16, 2019). During the discussion, Mr. Omarie Waadie, 3rd Vice-President of the NPP, was quoted as saying that I, Johnson P. Asiama (Dr.), former 2nd Vice Governor of the Bank of Ghana, had had to resign because of my involvement in MENZGOLD. I wish to categorically deny this perverse badertion as an attempt to harm my reputation for any reason. Mr. Waadie also said that I was becoming the vice-presidential candidate for the NDC flag bearer. It's also a palpable lie, as the gentleman is known to engage all the time. "

Read below the complete statement:

The former deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana writes:

PUBLICITY
RE: DECLARATIONS WITHOUT RECOGNITION BY MR OMARIE WAADIE, THIRD NATIONAL VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NPP, ON JOY NEWS, WHO LINKS ME, JOHNSON P. ASIAMA (DR.) IN QUESTION MENZGOLD

My attention has just been drawn to a roundtable that was held on JoyNews Live around 6:30 pm today (January 16, 2019). During the discussion, Mr. Omarie Waadie, 3rd Vice-President of the NPP, was quoted as saying that I, Johnson P. Asiama (Dr.), former 2nd Vice Governor of the Bank of Ghana, had had to resign because of my involvement in MENZGOLD. I wish to categorically deny this perverse badertion as an attempt to harm my reputation for any reason. Mr. Waadie also said that I was becoming the vice-presidential candidate for the NDC flag bearer. It's also a palpable lie, that the gentleman is known to engage all the time.

I have referred the case to my lawyers and we will follow up on the letter to seek redress in court. I strongly wish to warn Mr. Omarie Waadie not to involve me in the kind of dirty politics and gross behavior in which he behaves. He is rather harming his party and I hope that the leadership of the NPP will call him command. I have absolutely no political ambition at the moment, unlike the unfortunate statements he made about me.

As a senior official, I hesitate to speak openly about such things, but I am obliged, given the circumstances, to explain the problems, especially my resignation, for the sake of clarity.

The Minister of Finance, the Hon. Ken Ofori Atta, and the reason he gave me that day, is that the president wanted to designate his own person for me. It never had anything to do with Menzgold. The rest is history. I would like to say the following:

1. Somewhere around the month of August 2017, I led a team of Bank of Ghana staff to the Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts to answer some of the issues raised in the 2016 Auditor General's Report. . The report had nothing to do with MENZGOLD.

2. However, during the deliberations, a Member asked about the status of MENZGOLD and asked if we were regulating their activities. I took the time to explain at the meeting that we were not regulating MENZGOLD and that we had not allowed them to accept deposits from the public. Therefore, the Bank of Ghana can not be held responsible to anyone. I also explained that they had a license issued by the Minerals Commission (and PMMC) to buy and export gold; and therefore, we could not just storm their premises to lock them up.

3. I was then the governor in charge of the supervisory department of the other financial institutions (OFSD) which regulated the microfinance institutions.

About a week later, I convened a meeting with the leaders of the other regulatory authorities (PMMC, Minerals, Security and Foreign Exchange Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources) and we made several decisions to resolve the problem MENZGOLD. There were sudden changes in leadership in the three (3) institutions (SEC, Minerals Commission and PMMC) during the same week and so I decided to reconvene the meeting at a later date.

5. I then asked to meet MENZGOLD. Their lawyer and two other staff members came to my office. During the discussions, I realized that they did not seem to understand what they were doing. I took the time to explain to them that the products they offered (with the exception of gold exports) were all related to Ponzi schemes.

6. At the end of the meeting, they understood and they called on me to help them restructure so that BoG could regulate them. I told them that they had to apply for a financial institution license (at a minimum) before they could hire them. In the meantime, I told them to stop the Bullion Banking products and to advertise in the newspapers for that purpose, which they did afterwards.

7. The staff of the OFSD was present at this meeting and I was informed that they were visiting the company and inspecting their coffers. I was particularly interested in the security of the database, drawing lessons from the experience of DKM. Therefore, I told them to make sure that MENZGOLD had backups of data and to obtain copies for our donations. My plan was to check if the value of gold in their coffers was equivalent to the money received by their sister company, BREW MARKETING.

8. Unfortunately, the same day, the Minister of Finance called me to announce that the President had decided to replace me by his own person, which I forced. Certainly, if my efforts had continued even after my release, we would have managed to restructure MENZGOLD or resolve them entirely before the end of 2017.

9. Therefore, I wish to emphasize once again that my engagement with the MENZGOLD leadership prior to my departure was in keeping with my responsibilities as supervising governor for OFSD, which oversaw non-bank financial institutions such as microfinance institutions. Obviously, if someone had followed what I had started, we might not be here today.

END