The Ghana Port and Harbour Authority (GPHA) is alleged to have bought back 15 percent of its own shares by giving up revenues to be accrued from the Tema Port operations for the next 10 years.
The shares buyback by the GPHA follows a deliberate halving of GPHA’s 30 percent shares by MPS in a meeting of its shareholders in Amsterdam in May and June 2016, where MPS issued more shares which reduced GPHA’s equity from 30 percent to 15 percent overnight.
The halving of GPHA’s shares according to a special report by Africa Confidential was not noticed until six months later.
In public, however, parliament, the media and the government continued to refer to GPHA’s ‘30% share’ and the halving of the share would not be properly noticed for another six months. The share reduction took place behind such a fog of legalistic jargon that GPHA officials did not at first realise what was going on, stated the report by Africa Confidential.
GPHA’s decision to relinquish its revenues for the next 10 years to regain its 15 percent was done under the watch of former Director-General of the GPHA, Paul Asare Ansah.
GPHA’s 30 percent ownership of the Tema Port followed the privatization of the port by government.
The Special report by Africa Confidential details how Bollore Africa Logistics belonging to French business tycoon, Vincent Bollore and MPS won a contract from the government allowing MPS to open a hugely profitable, state-of-the-art container terminal at Ghana’s Tema Port in July 2019 and having a 70 percent ownership stake in the Tema Port.
Below is the link to the detailed report by Africa Confidential:
(Special Report: How Vincent Bolloré won control of Ghana’s biggest port)
