The Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has secretly withdrawn a suit his client brought against the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) at the Supreme Court.
The event took place some three weeks ago.
The legislator and his client were accusing the bank of failing to seek parliamentary approval for its Initial Public Offer (IPO) that would have paved the way for it to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
This website had earlier reported that pressure was mounting on the lawmaker from some elderly persons in the society to withdraw the suit against the ADB after news broke out alleging that he had taken bribe worth GH¢250,000.00 from the bank and was still demanding for more.
On Tuesday, September 15, 2015, Mr. Markin threatened to go the full scale against ADB until the right thing is done.
“The ADB case will never be withdrawn,” he said in an interview with Randy Abbey on Metro TV.
He was reacting to his alleged involvement in a bribery scandal that has rocked the bank.
The Effutu lawmaker had slapped an injunction on the bank’s IPO and prayed the court to compel it to first seek Parliamentary approval before going ahead with the transaction.
The bank, on Monday, September 14, 2015, served notice of the indefinite suspension of its IPO.
A statement signed by its Resource Coordinator, Justice Apenkwa directed its agents to return all shares sold.
“Please be advised of the suspension of the Initial Public Offer of ADB shares until further notice. Kindly transfer what you have already sold to the returning officer/Financial Controller,” the statement in part read.
What triggered the suspension was not discussed by the bank but industry players attributed the decision to the court action brought against it by the Effutu legislator.
It was the second time the bank had suspended the IPO which was scheduled to close in October, 2015.
Mr. Markin has been fingered for using the suit as a bait to get him paid huge sums of money in an attempt to soften his stance.
He is alleged to have been paid GH¢25,000 by the bank. But he seems not satisfied.
An audio recording which had gone viral on social media platforms and played severally on some radio stations had a conversation between two men discussing how they plotted against the bank to make some money using the court action against the IPO as bait.
One of them has since been identified as the Effutu legislator while the other is his childhood friend, Kwesi Bonzoh.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin was heard discussing how he could make GH¢1million from the bank after which he would go to court “to play gymnastics” for the court to rule in favour of ADB.
He was also heard telling his friend that part of the money advanced to him had been disbursed to some key friends who were involved in the matter.
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