Bank of Ghana has no record on drill ship accounts

The Bank of Ghana says all efforts made to locate documents on the account opened for the drillship cannot be traced on its files.

Mr. Paul Kwadwo Djang, Manager of Treasury Department of the Bank of Ghana, said he could not say for sure whether the 3.5 million dollars balance out of the 24 million dollars sale of the drillship was deposited in account number 0001191613 at the Ghana International Bank in London.

He told the Judgment Debt Commission on Monday that no documents relating to the transaction had yet been sighted and asked for three weeks to enable the Bank to search further for the necessary documents.

Mr. Justice Yaw Apau, Commissioner of the Judgment Debt Commission, said if any account was opened for the drillship it should be after the sale which took place in April 2001

Mr.  Kwadwo Awuah Peasah, Director of External Resource Mobilization at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning,  said the Ministry did not at first deduct the withholding taxes of the 2.5 million Ghana cedis judgment debt paid to NWI on behalf of Ghana National Procurement Agency.

He said however that the Ministry started to make deductions on the taxes in 2011 on Judgment Debt compensation paid to New World Investment Limited.

It would be recalled that New World Investment (now New World Securities), received the judgment debt of GH¢2.5 million against the Ghana National Procurement Authority (GNPA) as result of about GH¢1million the latter borrowed from the former in the form of “commercial paper” in 2004 to augment its working capital.

Source: GNA