BoG�s Over 100 Accounts Puzzle Justice Apau

The Judgment Debt Commission (JDC) chaired by the Sole Commissioner, Justice Yaw Apau on Monday learnt that government has over one hundred different accounts with the Bank of Ghana, (BoG), a development which has resulted in the bank releasing monies for compensation payments without knowing the identities of the beneficiaries. The JDC promised to dig deep into payment of compensations made by the state to some unidentified beneficiaries, after it emerged at the Commission�s sitting that some people received compensation from the state to the tune of GH� 780, 089.80, but their names could not be traced. The Assistant Director of the Banking department at the BoG, Lesley Akrong who appeared before the commission in respect of compensation payment to unidentified persons at Adaklu and Abotia in the Volta region, noted that the instruction given them to go ahead to pay the monies did not reveal the identities of the beneficiaries. Asked how the money was paid he said, government had a lot of accounts with the BoG and therefore the said money was just transferred into another government account called, Government Non-Road Arrears Account. �There are a lot of government accounts. Over hundred accounts, but we are closing some. They are rationalizing some of the accounts now. We open and close as the situation demands. � According to him, the BoG is not in a position to know the identities of the recipients of the said amount since the instruction from the accountant general�s department did not provide them with such information. �My Lord, the BoG will only be privy to such information if they are clearly stated in the payment instruction. The payment instruction we received from the controller on December 22, 2009, did not state the names of the beneficiaries. We were only instructed to pay the money into governments account to facilitate the transfer for the payment of the compensation in respect of the Adaklu and the Abotia lands.� Asked by the counsel of the commission Kofi Dometi Sokpor to state the names to which the monies were credited to, he replied, �My Lord, we are not privy to the names. We were instructed to move money to the government account into another account and it was paid into �Government Non-Road Arrears Account.� The Sole Commissioner, however, bemoaned the act and wondered, �Why should there be several accounts? Because there is one consolidated fund, so why should there be so several,� but Mr. Akrong�s explanation was, �I understand all of them put together is what is referred to us consolidated fund.� Justice Apau found it difficult to come to terms with the practice and referred the assistant director of the banking department to his earlier testimonies on the existence of special judgment debt account. �You came here and told us that there is no judgment debt account with the BoG, called Special Judgment Debt account; that is what you told us, meanwhile the Ministry of Finance and controller said there is special judgment debt account. Mr. Akrong tendered in some documents in relation to the matter which he believes will be useful to the commission in its pursuit of identifying the unidentified beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Controller & Accountant General�s department and the Attorney General (AG) have also been subpoenaed to apprise the commission on the matter. The BoG also answered questions on a compensation paid to Carmichael family in respect of Livestock projects. The AG represented by the chief state attorney, Dorothy Afriyie Ansah also appeared before the commission in respect of four other cases which include, the compensation to Carmichael family and Sarroch Granulati Gelfi joint venture and the ministry of roads and highways of which she tendered in some documents.