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GHANA WEATHER

BoG sacks staff for allegedly taking bribe to facilitate award of mobile money contract

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The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has dismissed a staff who is alleged to have taken bribes to facilitate the award of a mobile money contract to Sibton Switch in 2016.

According to the Central Bank, its employee Gilbert Addy who was the manager for the project collected as much as GH¢410,000.00 in bribes and other shady payments to help deliver the contract to Sibton Switch.

In a statement, the Bank said Mr Addy is listed as the Director and Shareholder of GIB JUST Systems, which acted as a shelf company to facilitate the award of the contract to Sibton Switch.

According to the statement, after the 2016 elections and on the appointment of a new Management of the Bank of Ghana, it became necessary to review the terms of the contract entered into by the previous administration.

In reviewing the contract the new Management of the Bank reached the conclusion that Sibton had neither acquired the licence nor fulfilled the condition precedent for the effectiveness of the rights and obligations of the parties.

It said the agreement, which dealt with the grant of exclusive rights to Sibton Switch to build, operate and own the Ghana Retail Payment Systems Infrastructure was therefore terminated on the basis that it never came into effect.

It said on the 9th of April last year (2018), Sibton Switch Limited filed a Request for Arbitration at the International Dispute Resolution Centre of the London Court of International Arbitration against the Bank of Ghana for breaching the Master Agreement for the Ghana Retail Payment Systems Infrastructure entered into by the two parties.

It said Sibton Switch,  was seeking relief in the sum of  $478 million from the Bank of Ghana. It was there that these corrupt payments and bribes to Mr Addy were uncovered by the Bank’s International Legal Counsel, Hogan Lovells, during their preparation of the Bank’s defence to the arbitration claim brought by Sibton Switch, in respect of the terminated contract.

The statement says as part of their preparation for the hearing in London, its International Legal Counsel undertook two fact finding and investigative missions to Ghana from 14th–17th August last year(2018) and subsequently from 8th–17th May,this year (2019), to gather and collate evidence.

During these two missions, the team gathered materials and interviewed all members of BoG staff who had been involved in this transaction, in one way or the other.

The investigations revealed a sham contract signed between Sibton Switch Limited and the shelf company, GIB JUST Systems Limited, which showed that further payments totalling USD $500,000 were to be paid to Mr Addy.

The investigation also revealed the depth of involvement of Mr Gilbert Addy who deliberately concealed from the Bank of Ghana, the payments received and the USD $500,000 sham contract with SibtonSwitchLtd.

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