Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Details are emerging that the Venture Capital Trust Fund
(VCTF) has virtually been depleted due to alleged corrupt practices by
officials at the fund.
It is turning out that the Development Assistance Fund (DAF)
and the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) created under the VCTF to give funding
access to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) were allegedly used as an
avenue to steal state funds.
Currently, only about 7% of a whopping GH¢18.26 million
invested by the government between 2010 and 2015 has been recovered and GH¢32
million was outstanding.
About 205 SMEs are said to have benefitted from the DAF and
SPV schemes of the VTCF and some existing and former
employees, particularly the immediate-past Chief Executive Officer Daniel Kofi
Duku, have been cited for “directly or indirectly” engaging in “fraudulent
activities” during the disbursement of the DAF and SPV loans.
Loans were purportedly awarded to phony companies which
could not be traced, making recovery very difficult.
Mr Kofi Duku, who was appointed by the late President Atta
Mills in June 2010, was removed by John Mahama and replaced with the current
chief executive, Osman Sulemana, who just referred the matter to the BNI.
BNI
Probes
An internal investigative report cited by DAILY
GUIDE traced the alleged fraudulent activities of the former CEO and
his cronies and as a result, Mr Osman Sulemana, on the instructions of the
Board of Trustees, has invited the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to
thoroughly look into the matter.
Apart from Mr. Duku who reportedly took a monthly salary of
$15,000 (GH¢63,000), other top managers who are to be investigated include,
Kofi Sarpong, who is a former senior investment officer; Irene Anti Mensah, a special
assistant to the Ex-CEO; Emmanuel Akuamoah, a Deputy General Manager – Kumasi
Office; Charles Okyere, who is a client and friend to the Ex-CEO; Lassey
Agbenyefia, a former Trustee; George Aidoo, a driver of the Ex-CEO and Charity
Opoku, former Accountant and now an Investment Officer.
The VCTF, which is the creation of Act 680 of 2004, is
finding it difficult to retrieve the funds because the clients - mostly cronies
and family of the Ex-CEO and other top management members - reportedly used
fake documents in securing the loans.
According to the internal report endorsed by the Board of
Trustees, the perpetrators had used fake application letters, fake signatures,
fake business registration certificates; and the loans were authorized with due
diligence while the issue of concessions to spouses and relatives of loan
processing officers, non existing telephone contacts, company locations, denial
of guarantors of signing loan documents among others, have come up strongly.
The ex-CEO reportedly granted a loan facility of GH¢580,000 to
his driver (George Aidoo), who is said to have created four companies and
another GH¢130,000 to the husband of the ex-CEOs personal assistant, Irene
Mensah.
The driver’s companies - Aidoo Commodities (was granted GH¢250,000
in May 2013), Techgro Investment (GH¢150,000 in 2014), Asaman Commodities
(GH¢30,000 in July 2015) and another GH¢150,000 for Techgro Investment.
According to the report, there was no processing officer in
the loan granted Irene Mensah’s husband and VCTF has not been able to trace the
company that received the funds because there is no file for that transaction.
The ex-CEO also allegedly granted GH¢900,000 to one of his
friends called Charles Okyere, who was a signatory to four beneficiary
companies like Farm Yard Ghana Limited (GH¢120,000 in August 2012), Fonelink
Company Limited (GH¢30,000 in July 2012 with top-ups), Pee Wee Farms (a total
of GH¢30,000 between October and December, 2012) as well as Moonshine Company,
which was given GH¢120,000.
According to the report, $614,000 was paid into the personal
account of one Reverend Blankson, a trustee of Bethany Church, for acquisition
of 0.55acre land at Ridge, Accra, but the trust had not obtained any title to
the land nor had the money been refunded.
The report said at one point, Mr. Duku was asked by the
board to refund $26,252 following what was concluded to be an unlawful trip the
CEO had embarked upon, but $18,000 was outstanding.
When he was pressed further for the refund, he allegedly
issued two postdated cheques, which were all dishonoured.
According to the report, in 2015 alone, a total of
GH¢825,000 was disbursed, disregarding the board’s directive to halt
disbursement.
The VCTF, in its bid to recover the outstanding loans,
engaged the services of Oxford and Beaumont, Sterling Partnership and Bethel
Law to assist in the recovery programme; and in June 2015, Bullion Financial
Advisors Limited (BFAL) was brought on board when a total of 116 companies were
transferred to them.
According to the report, BFAL was able to restructure 52
loans and that had resulted in recouping GH¢612,540.79.
More
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