$2.25bn bond was very transparent – Ken Ofori-Atta

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has told Parliament that the recent 2.25 billion dollar bond is devoid of infractions and improper procedure.

According to him, the accusations by the minority may be due to a genuine lack of understanding of the processes of bond issuance by the Minority.

The Minister’s statement is in response to a half-hour motion passed by Parliament to summon him to provide full disclosure on the bond issuance.

Responding to the motion on the Floor of the Parliament on Wednesday, Mr. Ofori Atta stated that, the issuance was transparent and was done in accordance with how bonds and government securities have been issued over the years.

He explained that the Ministry of Finance, during the issuance of the bond, “had no direct dealings with investors.”

“All prospective bidders bid through their primary dealers, who in turn submitted the investor’s bids through the Central Securities Depository platform. The joint transaction advisers then collate these bids to build up a book on which the bonds are issued. At no time during the book building process did the Ministry of Finance negotiate with any investor in any way, and it will indeed be quite difficult to manipulate the process when the three financial institutions are governed strictly by the Bank of Ghana’s rules and regulations.”

Mr. Ofori-Atta added that “there were no breaches of integrity either on government’s part or on the joint book runner’s part.”

“It may be tempting to say that the apparent attempt to manufacture some form of integrity deficit is generally borne out of a lack of understanding of the actual process,” he added.

#Headlinesnews #News #Latestinghana #Politics