I didn't know of $2.2b bond until today - Gloria Akuffo

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Gloria Akuffo has denied claims by the Minority in Parliament in that she has got herself involved a case conflict of interest case with respect to the issuance of the recent $2.25 billion bond by government.

The Minority at the press conference on Tuesday, alleged that, a non-executive director on the board of Investment Firm, Franklin Templeton, who purchased 95 percent of the $2.25 billion bond, is also the Chairman of the Enterprise Group, which has links to Ms Akuffo and the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta.

But according to Ms Akuffo, she was “never the director of Enterprise Group” but a non-executive Director for Enterprise Life, which is a subsidiary of Enterprise Group, a position she left on April 1, 2017.

The Enterprise Group, she explained, has a number of entities including Enterprise Life, Enterprise Trustees, Enterprise Properties and Enterprise Insurance, among others which are limited liability companies on their own and she only served on one of these companies, which are separate entities under the Enterprise Group.

“The governance arrangement is that, there is a group board separate, and apart from these other companies, one of which I served on as a non-executive director, and I am saying that as far as I am aware, Enterprise Life, on which I served, was never involved in the transaction which is the subject-matter of debate now. I am also not aware that Enterprise Group as an entity was involved in this transaction.

“There is a difference between the governing body of Enterprise Group and Enterprise Life… I am not aware and I have not been part of any transaction involving the entity which was the subject matter of the [Minority] press conference.”

On the issuance of the bond itself, the Attorney-General revealed that she was not even aware of the transaction and only heard news of the bond for the first time from the Minority's press conference.

“I don’t know whether as a matter of fact these things have happened in what form or on what date which should inform any legal position on my part”, she stated on Citi FM's Eyewitness News on Tuesday.