Scandal Hits SSNI

SSNIT

There appears to be more than meets the eye to the sale of the 16.14% shares of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) in The Trust Bank to Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI).
Though managers of the country’s pension scheme, led by Frank Odoom, have declined to comment on the issue about the sale, it is believed to have resulted in the loss of an amount of GH¢179million to workers’ benefits.


Indications are that several interest groups including local contractors and a committee set up by Vice President John Mahama opposed the sale of Trust Bank’s share to ETI, Nigeria, but was defied by the Board of Trustees, led by Kwame Peprah.


The leadership of the political pressure group, the Alliance for Accountable Government (AFAG), believed that the sale of SSNIT shares in TTB was not only unnecessary but also a calculated attempt by those they described as ‘corrupt-minded and irresponsible’ persons to rob workers of their livelihood at pension.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Chairman of AFAG, Dr Nana Ayew Afriyie, said, “There was no need for the sale” and that “TTB was performing well.”


PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a reputable chartered accountancy firm, was said to have valued each share at GH¢14, compelling the Swiss Investment Bank and the Rand Bank of South Africa to express interest in buying the shares.


But the Board of Trustees, chaired by former Finance Minister, Kwame Peprah, was said to have turned down the offers.


It was said to have later contracted another company, Strategic African Securities (SAS), which is owned by Togbe Afede XIV, otherwise known as James Akpor, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli state, who happens to be a board member at the Bank of Ghana to value the share price.


SAS was then reported to have reduced the share value from GH¢14 to GH¢12, which the board decided to sell to ETI in total disregard for the initial GH¢14 per share offered by the Swiss Investment Bank and the Rand Bank of South Africa, as evaluated by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Dr Nana Afriyie

This devaluation, according to AFAG, had resulted in the loss of $70 million, the equivalent of GH¢112million, using an exchange rate of GH¢1.6 as at December 2011.


At the time things were being finalized to sell SSNIT shares in TTB, Dr Afriyie claimed, “the Board of Trustees injected an amount of GH¢67million between June and October 2010 after the devaluation exercise into TTB’s operations for no reason, since TTB was already doing very well.”


He described the payment as nothing but a ‘back door’ investment.
AFAG said, “This is more than the overall amount involved in the Alfred Woyome and CP judgment debt payment saga.”


End-Of-Service Benefits
Meanwhile, the payment of End-of-Service Benefits (ESBs) to members of management who were said to have been wooed by the Board of Trustees is said to be in a limbo as Ecobank has ruled out the possibility of making any such payments.


That aside, over 200 workers are expected to be sacked anytime soon while the livelihood of Small & Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) remains in danger since the TTB, which is its main source of support, has been liquidated.


AFAG therefore called for a Parliamentary enquiry into the sale of SSNIT’s 61.14% shares in TTB to ETI whilst advocating a dissolution of the Board of Trustees, resignation of the SSNIT MD, and the immediate removal of the four members of organized labour, Kofi Asamoah, Robertson Allotey, Diana Okine and Amo Dako from the Board of Trustees.


This, according to the group, was because “the current SSNIT board of trustees aims aggressively to sell off all their investments.”


Under the current circumstance, it claimed SSNIT’s shares in First Atlantic Bank had been sold, Trust Hospital had been de-coupled and about to be sold, Merchant Bank and the SSNIT Guest House were set to be sold whilst the informal sector had been sold to NTHC, a company allegedly blacklisted by the 2007 Auditor-General’s report as unfit to manage public funds.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu