Wednesday, 02 April

‘Vindictive,’ ‘backward-minded’ Akufo-Addo gov’t didn’t think the name ‘Agongo’ deserved owning a bank or prospering

Business
Businessman Seidu Agongo

Businessman Seidu Agongo has said the Akufo-Addo administration singled him out for destruction because they thought he did not fit the prosperity narrative.

Mr Agongo, whose bank, Heritage Bank, got collapsed by the Bank of Ghana under Mr Ken Ofori-Atta as Finance Minister and also went through an almost-eight-year prosecution for supplying fertiliser to the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), told Metro TV in a recent interview that he believed Mr Akufo-Addo’s cousin, Ken Ofori-Atta, had a thing against him, thus, the attack on his financial institution.

“I sincerely think Ofori-Atta is the one who 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 who when they even see you, they get irritated. There are people who 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,” he noted.

Mr Agongo, however, pointed out that, unlike human beings, God does not discriminate.

“We recognise the fact that God, the Creator, doesn’t discriminate. God can make whoever to become whomever because if Obama was able to evolve from Kenya to become the president of the United States, who are you to say Agongo can’t own a bank?”

On his prosecution by the Akufo-Addo government, Mr Agongo described it as “political vindictiveness,” explaining: “Somebody doesn’t believe that the name Agongo should be able to do anything. It’s not just me, people have faced so many challenges based on that. We still have that – I wouldn’t say primitive mind – but I will say backward mind because at the end of the day, what will make you take me to court for Lithovit [Liquid Fertiliser]? I don’t work for COCOBOD. I’m not on any government payroll. That wasn’t the first time I’ve supplied the product. I supplied the product three times and all the three times I supplied, you’ve taken the product and consumed it and paid me and you are now taking me to court on something that I’ve supplied and you have consumed, gone to the field, done your own search and you were told that the product is good. How then do you prosecute me for this?”

Mr Agongo said he believes the Akufo-Addo government “was against me” because “they believed that I don’t belong: either I don’t own the business, working for somebody or something.”

He also revealed that some of Akufo-Addo’s appointees told him point-blank that were attempting to cripple him because he was a potential sponsor of their political opponents.

“Sometimes, some of them will tell you that if we leave you, you might have money to sponsor a particular political group, so that is why we are coming on you,” Mr Agongo noted.

He, however, wondered: “If you are a businessman, you are using the opportunities that exist to fill a gap, so why do you kill, or collapse such a person? Why do you block the account of such a person?”

 

 

Source: ClassFMonline.com/Terkperkuor Puor