Deputy
Communications Director for the National Democratic Party (NDP), Ernest
Owusu Bempah, has called on Security agencies in the country to arrest
President John Mahama's brother, Ibrahim Mahama, who is said to be
indebted to Merchant Bank.
Addressing the hullabaloo surrounding
the loan grant to Engineers and Planners (E&P); a mining firm owned
by Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, Owusu Bempah wondered why he (Ibrahim Mahama)
still walks about freely without the Security agencies accosting him.
According
to him, the actions and inactions of the President's brother are the
cause of the woes that have since befallen Merchant Bank.
There
is empirical evidence to show that President Mahama as Vice President
and acting on a petition to him by lawyer for E&P, Tony Lithur,
demanded explanations from Merchant Bank why they had refused to grant
his brother the loan for his company's operational costs during a
meeting with them.
Reports say Mr. Lithur asked him to intervene
to "maintain the status quo ante” and to “enable Engineers and Planners
take a structured approach to solving its problems with Merchant Bank."
"J.K
Bebaako-Mensah, the then Secretary to the President, in a letter dated 3
September 2012, wrote to Merchant Bank asking its Managing Director to
respond to Tony Lithur’s petition.
The Bank’s board responded in a ten-page letter dated 24 September, 2012.
It
referred to various meetings the board chairperson, Mrs. Marian Barnor
had at the Presidency following earlier reports to the seat of
government about the bank’s handling of the debt owed to it by E &
P.
The first of the meetings was with President John Mahama, who was then Vice-President, according to the Board.
Mrs
Barnor, the Board Chairperson, at that meeting, was asked by the Chief
of Staff to meet Mr. Mahama to explain why the bank at the time had
decided not to release monies to Engineers and Planners which owed the
bank, $38 million." as published by Peacefmonline.com on Tuesday,
December 3, 2013.
But to Owusu Bempah, who also spoke to
Peacefmonline.com, the President's brother must face the full rigors of
the law for supposedly causing the gradual downfall of the Bank.
According
to him, it is an act of nepotism on the part of President John Dramani
Mahama, who in his view, would quickly go after the likes of Dr. Samuel
Amo Tobin of Tobinco Pharmaceuticals Limited while his brother's company
embezzles whopping sums of money to a tune of 66 million dollars from
Merchant Bank.
"if the President can go after Tobinco, what is
stopping him from bringing the Security agencies to go after his own
brother, Ibrahim, who is the leader of the Engineers and Planners who
have embezzle or taken a loan from a bank which the bank” is at the
verge of collapse.
“Merchant bank, it belongs to the ordinary
people. The worker and he has borrowed such an amount, whopping amount
of money and he’s still walking about free and nobody is doing
anything.”
He questioned the commitment of the Security agencies to execute their duties effectively.
“What
is the National Security and the EOCO doing about it? Why are they not
going after Ibrahim Mahama? Is it because he’s the President’s brother?
That’s why he’s not been attacked or he’s not being investigated by the
Security agencies?” he asked. |
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