Withdraw from controversial Agyapa deal – Transparency Intentional urges UK financial firms LISTEN 2
An international anti-corruption organization, Transparency International (TI) is urging financial institutions and lawyers in the UK who are involved in the controversial Agyapa mineral royalties deal to withdraw their interests.
The organization has also written to the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to reject the application to list Agyapa Royalties Limited on the London Stock Exchange if concerns about corruption in the deal are not “satisfactorily addressed.”
TI in a blog post on its website on Tuesday December 22, 2020 said it had forwarded a copy of its submission to J.P. Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch International and law firm White and Case.
According to Linda Ofori-Kwafo, Executive Director of Ghana Integrity Initiative, the Ghana chapter of Transparency International, it submitted to the UK Financial Conduct Authority – and forwarded to J.P. Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch International and law firm White and Case – detailed concerns shared by a coalition of almost 30 Ghanaian and international civil society organisations that the deal smacks of corruption. In a statement, it said: There are serious red flags in how this deal was set up. Concerns have been raised by civil society actors around inadequate stakeholder consultation, transparency, and the valuation of the deal. Other concerns bother on the way transaction advisors became involved in the process and a lack of public oversight over the company at the heart of the deal. It is crucial for Ghana that the western financial institutions and regulators involved in this deal take these concerns seriously. They must not facilitate schemes that may end u