Agyapa Deal: Special Prosecutor Did A Sloppy Job-Dr Assibey-Yeboah
The Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, has accused the Special Prosecutor of doing a sloppy job with assessing the approval of the controversial Agyapa royalties deal.
In an unwavering defence of the work Parliament did in the approval that has courted suspicions from the minority legislators and 22 civil society organisations, Dr Assibey-Yeboah insisted that Mr Martin Amidu’s assessment of Parliament’s work was abysmal and highly opinionated without basis.
“We have done a fantastic job, thus far, there is no financial loss to the state. It is a good transaction. The idea has been there since 2011. Monetising our gold royalties is the way to go and we should applaud those who put this transaction together,” he said on Accra-based radio station.
Although the Special Prosecutor examined the paper trail from parliament concerning the deal, Dr. Assibey-Yeboah insisted that “it is not sufficient without talking to the people involved. What he put out there are conjecturers, hypotheticals, and hearsays.
The Special Prosecutor had raised questions about the processes leading to the selection of transaction advisors for the Agyapa deal, which he described as “opaque”.
In a 64-page document released by the Office of the Special Prosecutor after it completed an anti-corruption risk assessment of the processes leading up to the request for approval of the Agyapa deal, Mr. Martin Amidu noted a number of wrongs that needed correcting.
Mr. Amidu took on Parliament for failing to do due diligence on the transaction that it approved within 24 hours.
It is a position that vindicates the Minority who walked out of the decision-making process while the majority approved the deal.
Since the civil society organizations and the minority have not given the government peace in the deal in which the government was seeking to give out 49% of its shares in special purpose vehicle known as Agyapa to raise $1 billion from the London and Ghana Stock exchanges for development projects.
The deal
In the deal, 75.6% of royalties of at least 16 gold mining companies will go into Agyapa Royalties Ltd.
The company will list on the London Stock Exchange and the Ghana Stock Exchange and float 49% shares valued at $1bn.
