Business man Alfred Woyome has maintained his transactions in Ghana, most of which have been a subject of controversy are altruistic and patriotic enterprises meant to transform Ghana into a developed country like Malaysia.
If anything, it is his critics who are intoxicated with jealousy, Woyome suggested in an interview on Joy FM’s news analysis program Newsfile, Saturday.
“The kind of thing that we want to do is not from government. You people have said why is Malaysia like this, and Ghana has not done that and your own citizens are trying better to do the things so that you can get the Malaysia and out of jealousy and envy you spew out this which are false,” he said.
The NDC financier, is in a fresh ¢35 million contract with government, with a promise to build a Deep Sea Port.
His new contract comes at a time when he is struggling to negotiate a repayment plan for an amount of 51.2 million cedis illegally paid to him by government in 2010, an amount the Supreme Court has ordered him to refund to the state.
His company, Anator Holdings Limited signed the new ¢35million agreement with the former Transport Minister Dzifa Ativor in December 15, 2015, with Woyome tasked to raise funds for the project.
Woyome said the project, which he described as a West African project will create as many as three million jobs for the country’s unemployed youth.
The business man initially claimed to have been employed by Anator Holdings, as a Financial engineer but was reminded by the host Samson Lardy Anyenini that the agreement he signed was in the capacity as the Executive Chairman of the company.
He later admitted to playing a dual role as the Executive Chair of the company and the financial engineer at the same time for a company which started business in 2005.
Alfred Woyome said his company only signed a non-committal MOU with the Ghana Ports and Harbours which does not involve a penny from government.
“We did not force government to take any percentage out of anything. The Ministry of Finance agreed that it will take conditional upon certain issues,” he explained.
Woyome said the project has already begun, project sites acquired with competent lawyers, home and abroad employed to see to clean project.
But a member of Occupy Ghana, the pressure group which uncovered the controversial deal, has said the deal stinks and is likely to expose Ghana to some liabilities.
Ace Ankomah, a lawyer told host Samson Lardy Anyenini, the shady Anator deal is in many ways similar to the Woyome, Waterville scandal in 2010 which led to the state losing a whopping ¢51.2 million.
According to him, the seeds of the second deal were sown in 2009 with the then Finance Dr Kwabena Dufuor signing a letter for Woyome and his company Anator holdings to develop a green township. That letter, he was quick to add, was heavily conditional with a reminder that the agreement would have to be approved by cabinet and passed by Parliament after which government will have a 24% stake in a joint venture agreement.
It was a non committed in principle acceptance. This matter disappeared for a while. It started bouncing back again in 2014-2015, very similar to that of the financial engineering situation.
By this time there has been smokes screen. It was no longer just the development of green township. It was to develop Deep Sea Port but now metamorphosed into a whole multi-billion dollar project with Woyome using the non-committal acceptance letter in 2009 signed with Dr Duffuor as a binding contract and demanding that government must instruct SSNIT to take up the 24% initially suggested.
In November this year SSNIT was directed by government to take up a 24% stake in the project, but the Trust wrote back to government requesting further and better particulars of the project.
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