<<Print>>

Kwame Asare Obeng, popularly called A-Plus, has categorically told the police that he never said the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff had taken money from anyone.

However, he arrived at the conclusion that the two are corrupt because, he claims, they extended protection and favouritism towards uniBank’s operations at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in exchange for contributions towards the political campaign of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the run-up to the 2016 elections.

In his statement to the police, A-Plus alleged that the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff told him (A-Plus) that uniBank’s cancelled contract should be reversed because the bank contributed to the party’s electioneering campaign, a claim the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff have flatly denied in their statements to the police.
According to A-Plus, the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff used their position to put pressure on the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital to reverse the cancellation of uniBank’s contract.

“It is based on this development enumerated that A-Plus in his personal opinion accused Francis Asenso-Boakye and Samuel Abu Jinapor who are Government officials that they are taking advantage of their position to favour a private business, uniBank Ghana Limited, which has not the capacity to resolve Korle Bu’s revenue leakage challenge”, a copy of the full police report seen by The Finder said.

CEO of Korle-Bu, Dr Felix Anyah, Executive Director of uniBank, Ekow Nyarko Dadzie-Dennis and the legal team of uniBank, who were all interviewed, never mentioned at any point that there was exchange of money to reverse the cancellation of the contract.

No corruption to cover up

The admission by A-Plus that the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff did not take money from anyone means there is no corruption for the police to cover up.

No discussion between Dr Anyah and 2 Deputy Chiefs of Staff

Even though Dr Felix Anyah claimed that the pressure from the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff and two other Ministers of State, as well as frustrations encountered made him write to uniBank to disregard the termination letter, investigations revealed that there was no discussion between Dr Anyah and the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff to explain to the latter the rationale for opting for Stanbic Bank instead of uniBank.

According to the report, calls by the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff to intervene were based on a letter from uniBank copied to the Office of the Chief of Staff. The calls made by the Deputy Chiefs of Staff to the Korle-Bu CEO were consistent with the work of the Office of the Chief of Staff, and by extension the Deputy Chiefs of Staff.

Summary of findings

The full investigative report revealed that there is a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and uniBank before Dr Felix Anyah took office.
However, to enhance revenue collection and plug all revenue leakages, management of Korle-Bu decided to use electronic means, as well as one efficient bank to achieve their goal, the report said.

The report noted that management, therefore, opted for Stanbic Bank, who had done a presentation on Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) software, and which seemed to be efficient and better than that of uniBank.

The report explained that all these were done before Dr Felix Anyah took over as acting CEO of the hospital.

They then wrote to uniBank terminating an agreement between them in reference to a clause in their MoU.

uniBank thought they have not been fairly treated because they have a stake in KBTH with an investment of GH¢1.4m.

They responded to the termination letter, expressing their displeasure about the contents of the letter. The letter was copied to stakeholders, who tried to intervene.

The initial invitation to uniBank to compete for the billing and cash collection did not include HMIS.

Korle-Bu’s termination letter to uniBank

A letter dated July 12, 2017, signed by Kwame Gyamfi, Solicitor for Korle-Bu, addressed to Managing Director of uniBank and copied to CEO of Korle-Bu, terminated the contract with uniBank without giving reason for the action.

uniBank’s response called for a meeting

In response, uniBank, in a letter dated August 17, 2017, asked Korle-Bu to reconsider the decision, and requested for a meeting with management of Korle-Bu to discuss any issues of mutual concern.

Letter copied to Chief of Staff

The uniBank letter was copied to the Office of the Vice-President, Office of the Chief of Staff, Minister of Health, Minister of Finance, CEO of Korle-Bu, and the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department.

The copy sent to the CEO of Korle-Bu was received by Diana Owusu, a staff of Korle-Bu, on August 21, 2017.

Korle-Bu had a previous billing and cash collection agreement with Merchant Bank in 2013 and HFC in 2015.

These arrangements were cancelled due to inefficiencies in the system.

In 2015, Korle-Bu interviewed nine banks, after which five banks were shortlisted to go through selection process to select the best bank to do the billing and revenue collection at the hospital.

Having gone through carefully prepared and agreed criteria, the selection team presented the results as follows: Stanbic Bank - 59.4, GT Bank - 58.7, Universal Merchant Bank - 57.1, uniBank - 55.4, and GCB Bank – 48.

The then board of Korle-Bu wrote to the Controller and Accountant-General (CAG) for arrangement for change over.

The board decided that for competition to be created in the revenue collection, two banks were selected: Stanbic Bank (1st) and uniBank (4th). The board cited reasons for the selection as cash management and corporate social responsibility.

Controller indicts Stanbic and uniBank

The CAG, in response, cited various reasons why the two selected banks were not preferred, and suggested other banks to be given opportunity based on their previous track records with other government institutions to go through the selection process.

Controller proposed banks with track record

These include Universal Merchant Bank, Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, Prudential Bank, Zenith Bank and UT Bank (now defunct).

Korle-Bu, however, went ahead and signed the MoU with uniBank and Stanbic Bank for billing and cash collections.

Dr Felix Anyah’s statement

Dr Felix Anyah said on assumption of office, he met Korle-Bu Management to look into issues confronting the hospital and also find ways of improving it to offer quality healthcare, as well as improve the fortunes of the hospital.

He observed that there were revenue leakages, no beds at the emergency services, malfunctioning life support equipment and poor supply of oxygen.

The management, at a meeting, agreed for the use of ICT software to electronically manage the process.

Another issue that came out was the use of two banks operating without an interface system to communicate. This worked against the interest of the hospital and needed to select one efficient bank to help manage the cash collection to help resolve the lapses and weakness in managing the revenue mobilisation at the hospital.

On July 12, 2017 uniBank was served with a letter terminating the MoU between them and the hospital, and was given a 90-day notice.

Dr Anyah said that office records available were clear that uniBank performed poorly during the period of collection, especially at the beginning of the project.

Stanbic Bank had since inception performed well during the period of operations in the hospital, and were found to be efficient than uniBank.

According to the CEO, when the intention was rolled to move to complete Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) to resolve some of the challenges at the hospital, Stanbic Bank, who had earlier on indicated that the banks had a completed HMIS, was given an opportunity to make a presentation to the hospital.

uniBank was also given an opportunity to do a presentation to management in respect of their HMIS, but failed on three occasions to honour them.

Based on the presentation delivered by Stanbic Bank, the management team was satisfied, and requested Stanbic Bank to pilot the HMIS at the polyclinic. Mr Anyah further indicated that uniBank was also given an opportunity to pilot at the Maternity Ward even though they failed to make a presentation to management as to the solution uniBank could offer.

He further indicated that another reason for the abrogation of the agreement with uniBank was that allowing two banks to operate systems that are not compatible and do not have interface to communicate effectively was problematic.

According to Dr Anyah, immediately the termination letter was sent, and before uniBank could respond to the letter, calls started coming in from influential persons, asking him to withdraw the termination letter. No reasons were given, except that he should withdraw the letter.

Notable among the callers were the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu; Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu; Deputy Chiefs of Staff Asenso-Boakye and Jinapor.

Samuel Abu Jinapor’s statement

According to Jinapor, on receipt of the complaint, he called Dr Anyah and a colleague government official to seek clarity on the complaint made. He said the CEO responded by saying he was at a programme at Sogakope for the confirmation of the District Chief Executive and that he would call back after the programme, but he never called back.

According to him, their conversation lasted for only two minutes and, thereafter, he informed the Chief of Staff (CSO), Mrs Abena Frema Opare, and his colleague, Asenso-Boakye, about the complaint from uniBank, and Asenso-Boakye promised to take up the issue.

Asenso-Boakye’s statement

Asenso-Boakye stated that in July 2017, he was informed by his colleague Samuel Jinapor of a complaint by the CEO of uniBank against Dr Anyah for abrogating a contract between uniBank and Korle-Bu.

He claimed to have called Dr Anyah to confirm the stated allegations of terminating the said agreement.

According to him, he only sought to draw the CEO’s attention that abrogating a contract was a major decision and that the CEO should have waited until there was a board in place. He concluded that he never put pressure on the CEO and never mentioned financial support from uniBank to NPP during the campaign period.

uniBank’s statement

At uniBank Head Office, the investigative team met with the Executive Director, Ekow Nyarko Dadzie-Dennis, and the legal team of uniBank.

It was revealed that before the current administration, there was an MoU between the bank and KBTH for cash collection.

The KBTH Management Team proposed to sign a contract of three years with the bank, but the bank refused to sign, and proposed five years.

The reason was that the bank, as part of their corporate social responsibility, had invested an amount of GH₵1.4m into the hospital.

In July 2017, uniBank received a letter from KBTH terminating an MoU between them, and gave them a 90-day notice to wind up, without any reason.

He further stated that apart from the initial teething problem during the implementation, KBTH never officially complained to uniBank of any challenge so far as the billing and cash collections were concerned.

Thinking the bank had not been treated fairly, uniBank wrote back to KBTH and appealed to them to reconsider their decision.

The said letter was copied to the Vice-President, the Chief of Staff, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health, and the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department.

According to the Executive Director, the complaint to the Chief of Staff was for her to intervene to allow uniBank to do the cash collection because of the investment they had put in at the hospital.

The CEO of uniBank reported the matter to the Chief of Staff through Jinapor, and also reiterated that there was nothing better than protecting a wholly-owned Ghanaian corporate entity.

Kwame Asare Obeng’s (A-Plus) statement

A-Plus, in his statement, denied the fact that he accused and called the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff thieves.
He indicated that some people post things on Facebook as if they were posted by him.

He confirmed this by showing 5 different posts on Facebook purported to have been authored by him, but he claimed they were all not from his own page.

However, in his statement to the police, he stood by the allegation of corruption against the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff, and gave his reason for the allegation in a write-up as follows:
He had known Dr Felix Kwaku Anyah, the Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Korle–bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), for six years before his appointment.

Having had series of discussions on the way forward for the hospital, the CEO requested him to assist in whatever way he could to enable him succeed as CEO.

According to A-Plus, the CEO particularly requested him (A-Plus) to seek public and the staff perception about Korle-bu teaching hospital with the view to putting corrective measures to resolving them.

On his maiden familiarization tour of the Hospital facilities, he accompanied the CEO on his rounds.

It was observed that the hospital has no knowledge of actual revenue collected for a day or a period because the banks - Stanbic Bank Limited and uniBank - that do the collections do not credit the accounts of the hospital on the same day.

The banks decide how much to be credited to the hospital’s accounts and there is no way the hospital can confirm total collections for the day or at any given period.

Moreover, due to the fact there is no interface between the two banks that are doing the billing and the collections, revenue leakages continue to occur at the hospital.

As a result, detection of revenue leakages becomes almost impossible. According to A Plus, in their discussions, it became apparent that an efficient Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) which links units and equipment such as X-Rays, CT scan, and Laboratory to indicate actual services rendered and how much is charged for each service was needed by the hospital to stop the revenue leakage to improve KBTH finances.

He reiterated that in June 2017, at a Central Management Team meeting, a decision was taken to roll out on a pilot basis a complete HMIS that would include billing and revenue collection software to capture all the operations of major areas of KBTH.

Stanbic Bank had earlier on indicated to KBTH that the bank had a complete HMIS system that could help eliminate the revenue leakages. With the challenge of having two banks interfacing for billing and collections, it was imperative to concentrate on a single bank for effective management of HMIS at the hospital.

Stanbic Bank was therefore selected for piloting. Based on this decision, the Management Team visited the Vice-President to confer with him and to explain the challenges the hospital face in using two banks for billing and revenue collections.

They also discussed the benefits of using Stanbic Bank as the only on-site revenue collection bank at the hospital.

A-Plus claimed that the Vice President agreed to their proposals that it makes economic sense to use one revenue collection bank and use its premium billing and revenue collection software to better manage KBTH financially.

Based on this, the CEO directed the head of legal to write to Unibank to cancel the existing MoU with the bank.

On 12th July, 2017, a letter terminating the agreement between KBTH and Unibank was sent to the bank, giving them a 90-day notice.

Kwame Asare Obeng, A-Plus, added that uniBank had several weaknesses from their past operations at the Police and Ridge Hospitals, referencing a letter from the Deputy Controller and Accountant-General.

It suggested that uniBank had inefficiency in its operations. According to A-Plus, when the letter to uniBank intended to cancel the MoU was delivered, the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff called him and the CEO severally and put pressure on the CEO to withdraw the cancellation of the MoU because uniBank had supported NPP financially during the campaign period. According to A-Plus, the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff used their position to put pressure on the CEO of Korle-Bu to cancel the MoU.

It is based on this development enumerated that A-Plus in his personal opinion accused Francis Asenso-Boakye and Samuel A.

Jinapor, who are Government officials, that they are taking advantage of their position to favour a private business, Unibank Ghana Limited, which has not the capacity to resolve Korle-bu’s revenue leakage challenge.

That Asenso and Jinapor are extending protection, favouritism towards Unibank’s operations in exchange for contributions towards political campaign is a CORRUPT CONDUCT and breach of discipline in the performance of the work of high offices of Deputy Chiefs of Staff.

He reiterated that he never said the two had taken money from anyone.