The Progressive People’s Party (PPP), a party founded by businessman Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom has slammed the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Ernest Addison over his recent remarks on the suit filed by an equity fund and securities investment company based in the United States, Birim Group LLC.

Mr. Addison had said the suit filed against Dr. Nduom and 18 others including his immediate family, proves that BoG’s financial sector clean-up was not a political witch-hunting exercise.

“I thought that you will congratulate the Bank of Ghana for the work that was done in trying to identify the problems in that bank. Many people were out there vilifying us that we were on a witch-hunt, but now, you’ve had people outside the country using GN Bank for the same reasons.”

“So those who thought we didn’t have a basis for what we did, now the evidence is out there that what the Bank of Ghana was trying to do was the appropriate thing,” Mr. Addison had said.

The PPP in a statement rubbished these claims, insisting that the suit was a “continuation of the deliberate and well-orchestrated political smear campaign” against Dr. Nduom.

The party posited that the Governor was only seeking to give the “suit a cloth of legitimacy and currency” with his comments.

“We find his remarks very unfortunate, misleading, and mischievous,” the statement added.

What did the suit say?
The plaintiff in the suit filed by Birim Group LLC alleged that Groupe Nduom engaged in many illegalities for the “sole personal financial benefit of the Nduom family”, and used his businesses as a conduit to “facilitate the unlawful acts”.

According to the writ, the plaintiff’s assignors “are victims of defendants’ fraudulent, avaricious and criminal conduct perpetrated on more than a million unsuspecting depositors who have lost their life savings because of defendants’ unlawful acts.”

Reference was also made to the recent clean-up in Ghana’s financial sector where the plaintiff claims “a substantial portion of its [GN Bank] loans were illegally made to Nduom-related entities without the benefit of appropriate risk assessments, managements or determinants”.

Nduom’s response
But Dr. Nduom has denied all the claims.

He argued that the plaintiff has no direct business with him or the other defendants, and therefore does not have a case.

“This motion is brought by more than a dozen US Defendants named in the complaint but who have never met, spoken to, or be involved in any transaction with either Assignor. This includes Dr. Nduom and his immediate family; GN-IL, a Chicago bank in which Dr. Nduom invested, as well as GN-IL’s outside directors and CEO, and three other companies owned in part by members of the Nduom family.

Groupe Nduom on April 5, 2021, filed a motion asking for a dismissal of the case.