Smelly Corporate Practice

The ongoing brouhaha over the intended sale of Merchant Bank Ghana (MBG) represents another chapter of bad corporate governance in the country.

A fantastic study in selective application of standards and outright circumvention of procedures, this subject will arguably go down in history as the worst infringement regarding the sale of a state asset.

Containing all the ingredients of worst corporate practices, this subject is not leaving the public domain anytime soon and will, should the transaction go through at all, haunt everything the bank stands for in its future operations.

The prolonged argument over the transaction punctuated with direct orders from above is being contested by public-spirited persons including court litigation as it continues to maintain its number one position on the chart of bad corporate cases in the country.

In the latest page to be opened in the chapter, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana is reported to have insulted critics of the transaction in a manner not compatible with his status as a public officer of his rank.

It is worrying to observe public officials such as the Governor of the Bank of Ghana in the heat of a national debate wax political in their remarks in the fashion Dr. Wampah did.

Describing critics of the sale of the bank in the uncharitable manner Dr. Henry Kofi Wampah did is unacceptable and rightly opens his underbelly for attack by incensed Ghanaians as they do to politicians.

The remarks of the individual board members against the backdrop of the insistence of SSNIT that the transaction be given the green light, smacks of bad corporate practice whose fallout can only be imagined.

We are concerned, besides other factors, about how the worrying developments will give credence to the bandied perceptions about why the transaction is being rushed through at the insistence of persons on the corridors of power.

Many Ghanaians are privy to the remarks by the board members which though couched in diplomacy, point to their opposition to a rushed approval for the sale of the bank, with one of them even recusing himself.

There is everything wrong and unusual about letting an approval precede a due diligence in the case of the sale of a national asset such as a financial institution. Why is an exception being applied in the case of MBG even when there is a loud public outcry against the transaction?

Source: Editorial/Daily Guide