Mr. Victor Selormey, a Deputy Minister of Finance announced on Tuesday that the Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) Limited, has made 289.7 million dollars profit since its divestiture about five years ago.

Mr. Selormey, who was responding to questions in Parliament said between 1994 and 1998, the AGC as a group, paid a total of 52.10 million dollars as corporate tax, 1.2 million dollars and 14.3 billion cedis in foreign and local currencies respectively, as dividend tax.

On whether the floatation of AGC has benefited the country, Mr. Selormey replied in the affirmative, saying "we have avoided diminishing value by divesting the company. He said it was impossible to mention specific projects that the divestiture receipts had been used for, but indicated that proceeds from the divestiture had supported the budget.

To a suggestion that the remuneration of the Board Members of the AGC has adversely affected the financial position of the company, the Deputy Minister, who could not tell how much members earn, said he did not think it was huge. He said, however, that remuneration of board members of a company has not been known to be anything to cripple the business.

On whether all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have complied with Cabinet's directive that they should submit a complete list of their value books to the Controller and Accountant-General (CAG), Mr. Selormey said no MDA has so far done so. He said the Ministry is, however, aware that some MDAs have furnished the CAG with a partial list.