Long before headlines captured the updates on Development Bank Ghana’s (DBG) board, before the Finance Minister terminated appointment directors and launched a governance purge, one voice was already ringing: Bright Simons.
With his relentless civic advocacy, Simons, the Vice President of IMANI Africa, has emerged as a central figure in what is now Ghana’s most consequential public finance controversy in recent memory.
Through his investigative report titled “There’s a plot to ‘loot’ Ghana’s top development bank, say insiders”, Simons pieced together internal memos, whistleblower leaks, audit trail failures, and procurement malpractice to reveal not just negligence, but an alleged deliberate and systemic subversion of DBG’s mandate.
What he uncovered wasn’t just mismanagement. It was something deeper, a culture of impunity, enabled by weak oversight, and sustained by silence from powerful actors.
The Anatomy of Exposure
At the heart of Simons’ revelations was a trove of internal documents and whistleblower accounts. These came from frustrated insiders: compliance officers, risk managers, and former executives who had repeatedly tried, and failed, to reform the system from within. Their stories painted a devastating picture.
Key contracts were being handed out without competitive tender. Over 77% of DBG’s 2022 and 2023 contracts, valued at more than GH₵ 508 million, were sole-sourced. A disproportionate share of these was awarded to obscure entities like Kulana and Asamoah and Williams Consulting (AWC), companies with thin capitalization and questionable delivery records.
Simons traced how these companies were paid millions in advance, sometimes without even submitting auditable time-sheets or performance guarantees. In one case, a separate arbitration clause was secretly signed, overriding the original contract and shifting dispute resolution to London, outside Ghana’s jurisdiction.
Treasury management was no better. DBG, entrusted with public and donor funds to finance small and medium enterprises (SMEs), was instead using these funds for sweetheart placements with selected banks, often at below-market rates. One such bank, Fidelity Bank, where the DBG CEO held shares and had past connections, reportedly received millions in these placements, resulting in a GH₵ 2.5 million loss in just one deal.
Silence from the Top
What made the scandal more dangerous wasn’t just the wrongdoing. It was the silence that followed.
The Ministry of Finance, which fully owns DBG; the World Bank, which committed $250 million to its establishment; and the Bank of Ghana, its regulator, all watched as these governance failures accumulated. According to Simons, this amounted to an institutional conspiracy of silence, an implicit “plot to loot” orchestrated through omission and indifference.
Even DBG’s internal audit and legal teams were side-lined. Key contracts were never routed through legal, and in some instances, the Head of Procurement denied knowledge of major executive suite furnishing contracts until shown the payment vouchers by auditors. Oversight structures like the procurement committee were routinely rendered inoperable due to a lack of quorum.
Civil Society Steps In
It was this breakdown of internal controls and external accountability that led whistleblowers to seek help from outside. Simons, already known for exposing public procurement loopholes and development finance inefficiencies, became the natural channel.
His investigation was more than just journalism, it was civic intervention.
He didn’t just stop at documenting the rot. He called for:
- A moratorium on foreign disbursements from development partners like the EIB and KfW.
- Public disclosure of the World Bank’s forensic audit.
- Full civil society involvement in the oversight of public development finance institutions.
- Legal reform to stop SOEs from evading public procurement law under the guise of operational flexibility.
The Ripple Effect
Today, the impact of that advocacy is visible. The Finance Minister has responded, not with statements, but with actions. The dismissal of DBG’s Board Chair and all five non-executive directors, following a forensic audit, is being read as the state finally acknowledging what civil society had long exposed.
Bright Simons’ work did more than surface facts. It disrupted a status quo, raised the cost of complicity, and showed that in Ghana, public accountability still has defenders.
A Playbook for Civic Oversight
What this episode affirms is that transparency doesn’t begin at the top. It begins with pressure. Bright Simons’ report was a masterclass in strategic civic engagement, leveraging data, public interest, and global pressure to force open what others had tried to keep shut.
In a country where state-owned institutions are too often synonymous with waste, Simons’ work may mark a turning point. One where watchdogs speak louder than insiders, and where accountability is no longer a slogan, but a consequence.
