As President Nana Akufo-Addo’s Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta promised to protect Heritage Bank from being collapsed by the Bank of Ghana, but still went ahead to kill that dream, businessman Seidu Agongo has revealed.
In a recent interview with Mero TV, Mr Agongo said not even his cordial relationship with Mr Ofori-Atta, could save Heritage Bank from being collapsed by the Akufo-Addo government.
“When I heard they were doing the banking sector clean-up, I went to him [Ofori-Atta] and I said, ‘boss, you know me very well, you’ve known me for years and you know I don’t joke with my work. This is an institution that I have tried and gathered all my finances to build. If you have any issue, just even get me partners because I don’t believe in one-man ownership because I believe that if we have shareholders of equal stakes, it will work out,’” Mr Agong recalled.
He added: “He [Ofori-Atta] said, ‘I know how you work, I know you are a good person, I know the people you support, I know whoever you are. I’ll do my best to protect your interest.’ Ken Ofori-Atta told me this and he still went ahead to collapse it [Heritage Bank].’”
Mr Agongo recounted: “After he even collapsed it, I’ve met him and the wife, Angela, and he even introduced me: ‘This is Seidu, a very hardworking young man that I’ve gotten to know, very serious-minded person.’ It’s like that is how we relate and to be honest with you, even till date I don’t begrudge him so much because I believe that he took that decision based on the level of his thinking.”
Explaining what he meant by that, Mr Agongo said: “People, sometimes, take decisions not just on the basis that they want to hurt you but based on the maturity of their thinking.”
Clarifying his point using the interviewer as an example, Mr Agongo said: “I should take a decision on Kwesi Afriyie because of my level of thinking. If my level of thinking is so broad, so wide to the extent that I understand the fact that one day, Kwesi Afriyie can become somebody that I can lean on to help me, then I’m taking a decision that will broaden my success in the universe but if I decide to take a decision just to bring Kwesi Afriyie down, it’s a limited way of thinking, it’s a low way of thinking. It doesn’t work.”
Mr Agongo said he believes Mr Ofori-Atta had a grudge against him.
“I sincerely will think Ofori-Atta is the one that might have a problem with me because he knew me before. I think Ofori-Atta has a problem with me. I can’t figure it out but life is such that because of the culture and the way we are, there are people who are not happy with you even because of the way you speak. There are people that when they even see you, they get irritated. There are people that when they see you growing, they feel like, ‘You, Kwesi, when were you born? Your name is Agongo.’ There are people who are like that.”
Despite that, he said: “We recognise the fact that God, the Creator, doesn’t discriminate. God can make whoever to become whomever because if Obama were able to evolve from Kenya to become the president of the United States, who are you to say Agongo can’t own a bank?”
Source: www.kumasimail.com
