The founder of Groupe Nduom Papa Kwesi Nduom has denied the central bank’s claim that he transferred $62 million of customers’ funds to a foreign firm without documentation.
He said the monies were used to pay for items purchased from the firm – International Business Solutions (IBS) – and all the necessary documentation were adequately provided.
In a new video message, Dr Nduom explained “if Fresh Pak imports raw materials, we send Fresh Pak money to pay. If any of our companies, ask for something – say Coconut Groove needs some new towels, bedsheets – when they are brought to Ghana by IBS then Coconut Groove which would have money with GN Bank or GN Savings will transfer money to get those items paid for
“And before GN bank came, we were transferring monies to pay for goods and services received from the same IBS,” he said.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) last Friday announced the revocation of the licenses of some 23 insolvent savings and loans and finance house companies including GN Savings and Loans Ltd, one of the many companies owned by Dr Nduom.
According to BoG’s report, GN Savings and Loans transferred $62 million and another £718,000 to its sister company in the US without the knowledge of BoG and the Ministry of Finance.
The Central Bank said GN Bank was in breach of section 19 of the Foreign Exchange Act 2006, Act 723, Section IV of Bank of Ghana Notice No. BG/GOV/SEC/2007/4, and subsequent Bank of Ghana notices issued in August 2014 prohibiting such practices.
But Dr Nduom wondered how the transfer of duns for the payment of goods has been classified as illegal.
He said the BoG has all the documents for every pesewa transferred out of Ghana and there was absolutely nothing wrong with engaging in international business.
“So don’t let anybody fool you. Don’t let anyone come and tell us untruth so that they can throw dust in the eyes of the general public who don’t know what is done.
“Let us just make sure that we know where we are and where we have been and that whatever challenge that is there we will overcome it,” he added.
Dr Nduom urged Ghanaians not to lose hope and promised to deal with the situation.
In order to deal with it, however, he said “we can only deal with it if we are all together, we understand the facts, if we are able to explain our actions to everyone and let people know that we have done things with the best of governance practices and we have done things using our foundation which is one based on our faith,” he said quoting Jeremiah 9:11 vs 1.”
“We should all have hope that there will be a future and hat future will be a positive one,” he added.