Ivory Finance Company Limited says it had not been paid GH¢91 million by SIC Company Limited, the state insurer, apart from what was paid on the orders of the High Court.
“We wish to state emphatically that apart from the GH¢19.3 million that the High Court ordered to be paid to us after almost two years of default no amount of money has been paid to us either by SIC Insurance Company or Italconstruct,” Mr Emmanuel Adu-Sarkodie, the Executive Chairman of Ivory Finance Company said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference, Mr Adu-Sarkodie said if the debt owed by SIC had been paid to Ivory Finance the company would not be pursuing SIC in court for the amount owed.
Mr Adu-Sarkodie said the insurance company currently owes more than GH¢500 million being interest and charges on the credit guarantee bond issued to Ivory Finance in favour of ITAL Construct International Limited to guarantee a loan facility of GH¢14 million for a housing project in 2013.
Italconstruct International Limited applied for the bridge financing of GH¢14 million on 26th of March 2013 for a period of six months for the purpose of building over 4,120 affordable houses.
SIC Company issued a guaranteed bond to cover the loan.
“So far, SIC on the orders of the court has paid a little over GH¢19.3 million to Ivory Finance Company being the face value of the credit guarantee bond SIC issued to cover the loan.”
Mr Adu-Sarkodie said Ivory Finance initiated a court action on November 2013 at the Commercial Division of the High Court claiming against Italconstruct International Limited and SIC jointly and severally for the recovery of the amount due and owing on the loan facility.
“In view of the wording of the guarantee issued by SIC and the nature of defence filed by SIC which virtually admitted the liability, we proceeded and applied for summary judgement against SIC,” he said.
He said pending the hearing of the application for Summary Judgement ,SIC and Italconstruct requested a meeting on how they planned to liquidate the debt and requested a hold on with the application for summary judgement pending negotiated settlement.
Mr Adu-Sarkodie said at the time of the meeting the total indebtedness was over GH¢91.9 million and they proposed a reduction on the amount, a freeze on the interest and the payment of the outstanding debt in two instalments within a period of nine months.
Mr Adu-Sarkodie said after an examination of the proposal, Ivory Finance declined to reduce the outstanding amount but agreed to the freeze of the interest subject to the repayment of the debt within the nine month period proposed.
He said Ivory Finance was furnished with signed copies of the agreed terms of settlement executed by the then Managing Director of SIC Insurance and the Company Secretary and two directors of Italconstruct on 24th November 2014.
The terms were filed in court on the 25th November 2014 and entered as consent judgement on the 27th of November, 2014 but both Italconstruct and SIC failed to repay the amount and Ivory Finance proceeded to levy execution against all of them by freezing their accounts.
However, SIC issued a fresh action in court against Ivory Finance, the then Managing Director of SIC and Italconstruct seeking to set aside the consent judgement on grounds of fraud and applied to stay execution pending the determination of the fresh action.
The High Court on the 26th of February 2015 granted the stay of execution on condition that SIC pays the 19.3 million without interest to Ivory Finance.
“As we speak now the High Court and the Court of Appeal have both dismissed the fresh action brought by SIC Company and the matter is currently before the Supreme Court,” he added.
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