Policy analyst and founding President of IMANI-Africa, Franklin Cudjoe has described as sensible the decision by Databank to withdraw their service as financial advisors in the controversial Agyapa Gold Royalties Management deal.

According to him, the action comes off as good news to all who have an interest in the issue.

“It is good news. It is a very sensible thing to do because anything that appears to have conflict of interest soothing over it must be treated carefully and Agyapa has it. It had all the marks of conflict of interest especially when DataBank was involved,” he said

He posited that the decision by the Bank owned by the Finance Ministry, Ken Ofori Atta to withdraw from the deal is largely in the interest of shareholders of the bank.

“Databank is a professional entity and I think they have shareholders even beyond the shores of this country. I don’t think they would like to be soiled in that manner. So it was a sensible thing to do, to take Databank off the Agyapa deal,” he stated.

He re-emphasized the position of his organisation on the deal saying “They should change Agyapa and change everything about it. They should even change the name and open it up for everybody to join and have a very good conversation about it. So Databank going off is good news, it means that the next bank they bring on must be done transparently.”