By Geraldine Duodu
The disgraceful World Cup bonus saga of for Ghana’s player has taken a bizarre twist after the central bank of the country asked the players to provide their foreign bank accounts for payments to be made.
The Black Stars have not been paid all their bonuses since the tournament ended in South Africa four months ago.
This comes even though the government of Ghana has taken full custody of the US$11m paid by Fifa for the country’s participation in the tournament.
Government has been accused of deceiving the players after promising to pay by the end of August.
This is a continuation of the fully fledged cat-and-mouse game which started with blame being pushed at the doors of the Ghana Football Association.
A fresh tactic, deployed last week by the politicians, blamed the Bank of Ghana for the delay in payment of the US$63,000 owed each of the Black Stars.
But the central bank insists they had long demanded the account number of the players, a far departure from the norm of paying the players in cash.
The Bank of Ghana now says that paying the players cash when the amount is more than US$10,000 is against banking practices.
“The Bank states that it serves customers in accordance with the Bank’s operational guidelines and that it is against prudent operational practice to make payments to individuals in excess of $10,000.00 (Ten thousand dollars) in over-the-counter transactions,†a Bank of Ghana statement read.
“Accordingly, the Bank has informed the Ministry of Youth and Sports that the Bank would pay the foreign exchange amounts in question either to the bank accounts of the Black Stars players, or by cheques drawn on the Bank’s external account. This is in line with international best practice and with various security considerations.
“The Bank has therefore requested the Ministry to furnish it with a list of the names of the players and the respective amounts to each player to enable it to make the payments. The Bank is still expecting a response from the Ministry.â€
Ghana’s quarter-final World Cup team are owned a total of US$ 2 million which includes 1.4 million as appearance fee for the Uruguay match and the Presidential reward package of US$ 600,000.