Jawula, 2 others to refund 72 million cedis – But ex-chairman, vice fire back
I did nothing wrong – Abodakpi
Monitoring team to check Ministers
Alhaji Inusah’s juicy contracts
Min sets up probe into GNPC
Tribunal chairman grabbed
Hon Baah Wiredu rejects list
Top NDC men snatch 6 bn cedis
Bereaved father sues Korle Bu
Tony Aidoo appears in court
Sikkens’ 7b cedis RIP-off
‘NDC will win back supporters’
Apraku terrorises workers of Trade Ministry
Jawula, 2 others to refund 72 million cedis – But ex-chairman, vice fire back
State paper, the Daily Graphic, carries that two top members of the former Ghana Football Association (GFA) Management Board and the General Secretary are to refund over 72 million cedis to the GFA for negligence and lack of proper financial judgement over the disbursement of the $450,000 CAF grant to the national soccer body towards CAN 2000.
Alhaji M.N.D. Jawula, the former chairman; his vice, Mr Ade Coker and the General Secretary W.K. Agrah are to refund the money within 14 days.
Out of the amount, Mr Coker is to refund 25 million cedis and $2,380, while Mr Agrah refunds 9.306 million cedis.
In addition, Alhaji Jawula, the former vice-chairman, and the General Secretary are to jointly pay a total of 31 million cedis.
This follows the adoption on Wednesday of the recommendations of a nine-man committee set up by the GFA Congress to scrutinise an audited report on the CAF grant.
According to the committee, the grant was issued to the GFA, but the three men failed to inform their other colleagues on the then management board as well as the Executive Council about the receipt, lodgement and disbursement of the said money.
Instead, it was withdrawn from the GFA Account at CAL Merchant Bank and exchanged at Scancom Company Limited, a mobile phone company.
While the three men are severally and jointly surcharged with an amount of 6,871,500 cedis, being the minimum loss incurred in the exchange of the grant, they are also to pay back 23 million cedis which was spent on souvenirs, hospitability and entertainment for CAF officials and other guests during CAN 2000.
Even though the decision to exchange the money at Scancom caused a maximum loss of 369 cedis million, the Congress decided to surcharge the three with the minimum loss of 6,871,500 cedis because the loss was not due to any malfeasance but “for exhibiting poor financial judgement”.
Meanwhile, former GFA Chairman, Alhaji M.N. D. Jawula, says he is pleased that the Executive Council Committee, which scrutinised the audit report of the $450,000 CAF grant, did not establish any case of misappropriation against him.
Furthermore, he said, the committee’s view that his administration did not exhibit proper financial judgement is a subjective one open to several interpretations.
Questioning the basis for he committee’s conclusion, Alhaji Jawula said it must be viewed against the rumours, which preceded its work that the CAF grant had been “blown”.
When the issue of the CAF grant came up, there were screaming headlines that there had been some impropriety and that the money could not be accounted for.
“Yet, when we presented the accounts, duly audited by a reputable firm, the objective of the hunt shifted significantly to a charge of lack of proper financial judgement, which I think is an admission of something,” he intimated.
The former chairman was also intrigued by the curious silence o the committee on the fact that after the amount was cashed, it was actually invested at Cal Merchant Bank, a discretion which he said yielded a handsome return of over 38 million cedis in three months.
On his part, Mr Ade Coker expressed surprise and disgust at the charges by the committee against him when in most cases he acted on the instructions of his boss, Alhaji Jawula.
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I did nothing wrong – Abodakpi
Mr Dan Abodakpi, former Minister of Trade and Industry, has stated that he did nothing wrong in the award of contract for a study into the creation of science and technology parks in the country.
He said the allusions being made by sections of the media in connection with the case are, therefore, unfortunate and of no merit whatsoever.
He was reacting to the announcement on Monday by the government that he was assisting in police investigations into the transfer of huge sums of money to a foreign consultant in connection with the project.
Mr Victor Selormey, former Deputy Minister of Finance, is also assisting the police with investigations into the matter, together with three other public officials.
They are, Ms Grace Mends of the USAID Desk; Mrs Agnes Datsa, Head of Bilateral Relations; both of the Ministry of Finance, and Mr Haizel of the Ministry of Trade.
Mr Abodakpi said so far, he has co-operated with the BNI officials and called on all to do the same.
“I wish to state that since investigations are now ongoing, we should all co-operate and allow the process to be completed”, Mr Abodakpi said, and expressed optimism that the investigations would clear his name in the long run.
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Monitoring team to check Ministers
The government has constituted a monitoring team to check the conduct of Ministers of State to ensure that they live modest lives and deliver as expected, state daily, ‘The Evening News’ writes.
This is in addition to the formulation of a code of conduct to guide their operations.
Mr Mogtari Sahanun, Upper West Regional Minister revealed this at separate meetings with chiefs of the Sissala area and staff of the District assembly.
The Minister did not mention the composition of the monitoring team but said the measure was part of stringent efforts by the government to keep ministers of state on track at all times.
He said that the situation, therefore, requires that ministers should be hard working and very strict in their supervisory roles of government business and called on workers to be more pro-active towards the discharge of their duties.
The Regional Minister called for the re-introduction of attendance registers and movement books at the work places to keep track of workers’ punctuality and movement to be able to assess their performances.
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Alhaji Inusah’s juicy contracts
For those who did not know and could not understand why the man of “double political campaign tongue” Alhaji Issaka Inusah followed the NDC till the very end, there was more to it than mere politics.
The controversial Alhaji who campaigned for both the NDC and the NPP on television was, unknown to many of the electorate, benefiting quietly through several contracts from the NDC government.
The Evening News’ investigations can reveal that Inusah was paid about 930 million cedis through six different companies, which were used to obtain contracts from the Ministry of Works and Housing.
The companies were Messrs, Hasnus and Company Works, Messrs Top-Cut Contract Works, Messrs Way of Life Enterprise, Messrs Onyame Nkoa Ne Hene Enterprise, Messrs Inusah & Co and Messrs Archi-Craft Consult.
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Min sets up probe into GNPC
The Ministry of Energy has set up a committee to probe the operations of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) according to ‘The Ghanaian Times’ a state own daily.
The three-member committee comprising Professor Andrew Addae, National Project Co-ordinator of the International Atomic Energy Commission as chairman, Mr Joseph Kweku Atta Wiredu, a Management Consultant, and Mr Godfried Kesse, a geologist, as members has one month to submit its report.
Mr Kan Dapaah, Minister of Energy, charged the members to study the law establishing GNPC and come out with recommendations that would help restructure the corporation to focus on its core business of exploring for hydrocarbon.
He said, “The government is not pleased with reports on the operations of GNPC. Some of these will have to be investigated, especially some of the contractual agreements.”
Mr Dapaah said that GNPC had over the years divested into non-core business activities, thus losing focus of its fundamental role in the energy sector.
“The search for hydrocarbon is important and there must be an institution to do that.”
He urged the committee to “identify all assets of GNPC and recommend ways to dispose of those that are non-core related and no longer needed”.
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Tribunal chairman grabbed
The Akropong Police in Ashanti have arrested Agyei Banahene, the community tribunal chairman for Mankranso in the Ahafo-Ano South District, for careless driving and negligently causing harm.
Banahene, driver of an Opel Omega Saloon Car, GT 1499 P, was said to have overtaken a fleet of vehicles at Akropong Junction, which led to an accident last week Friday.
Briefing the ‘Times’ here, on Wednesday, sources close to the Ashanti Region Police Public Relations Unit said that he is now on police enquiry bail pending further investigations.
The sources indicated that on that fateful day, Banahene arrived at Akropong Junction on returning from Mankranso to Kumasi.
On reaching the junction, which is a curve he allegedly attempted to overtake a fleet of vehicles and in doing so collided with a Mazda Mini bus, AS 6472 F, which was being driven by Adu (now deceased).
Some passengers in the bus including its driver sustained various injuries and were rushed to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Kumasi for treatment.
The sources said the driver died on admission and the body deposited at KATH mortuary pending autopsy.
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Hon Baah Wiredu rejects list
The private bi-weekly, ‘The Ghanaian Voice’ reports that the Volta region’s list of personalities to be considered as government appointees to the District Assembles have been rejected.
Reason is that the Minister of local Government, Hon Kwadwo Baah Wiredu is not convinced about the manner the list was compiled, as it did not include detailed information of the personalities.
Corruption is also said to beset the election and vetting of prospective candidates for the position of District Chief Executive (DCEs).
Speculations are rife that the appointments may favour most NPP activists and these had raised questions from the District Assemblies.
This situation, which seems not to favour hot favourites, has resulted into confusion in some districts.
Though, the conditions for the submission of final list for the prospective candidates for DCE positions in each district is not supposed to be more than five the whole exercise was alleged to be fraught with corruption.
Information gathered by the paper at Ho indicates that the regional executives have constituted vetting committees in the various districts to discharge the function of selection and vetting prospective candidates for the DCE position and to consider others as government appointees.
This exercise had place some members of the committees in a position to go about extorting sums of monies ranging between 100,000 cedis and 300,000 cedis with the view to influence the vetting.
Many NPP supporters have complained about the composition of the so-called vetting committees in the region and questioned about he criteria used for the selection of the members.
The Ho district vetting Committee chaired by Gag Seneya had come under serious criticism from various quarters to discredit the authority behind he committee.
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Top NDC men snatch 6bn cedis
Independent paper, The Chronicle says investigation at the Ministry of Finance has revealed that more than 6 billion cedis approved by the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) for 52 nucleus farmers to enhance the production of food crops in the country has been diverted to leading members of the Progressive Alliance who know next to nothing about farming.
Some companies owned by leading members of the NDC were also mentioned as beneficiaries of the same facility.
Among the Alliance gurus whose names emerged are Mr Vincent Asisseh, press secretary of the NDC, Mr Dan Markin, national chairman of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) and General (rtd) Arnold Quainoo.
Enquiries at the Ministry of Agriculture to ascertain other beneficiaries of the Nucleus Farmers Scheme drew a blank response, as the ministry did not even know whom the farmers were.
In a telephone interview with the paper, the Public Relations Officer of the ministry, Mr Sakyi, said the ministry does not know the farmers who benefited from the facility, even though it acted as the facilitator.
When the PRO of ADB, Mr Coomson, was contacted he confirmed that Agricultural Development Bank had granted loans to farmers to support the Nucleus Farmers Scheme, but refused to give names of the beneficiaries, saying banking laws do not allow names of clients to be released to the public without the explicit approval of client.
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Bereaved father sues Korle Bu
Mohammed Awal, 30, a travel and tour executive is a very worried man having been brainstorming on how to keep his business running and now he has another agony to overcome: that of coming to terms with the death of his unborn daughter a the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on February 26,2001.
Awal, according to ‘The Accra Mail’, a bi-weekly sees the possibility of malpractice as the cause of his unborn child’s death. He said a scan conducted on his pregnant wife on Friday, February 23 showed that she could deliver anytime wife on Friday, February 23 showed that she could deliver anytime between Friday February 23 and Saturday February 24 and so she was admitted a the maternity ward of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
A senior nurse at the OPD examined the expectant mother and asked her husband to go home and return the following day at 12:45 noon when his wife would have delivered safely.
The following day Saturday February 24, when Awal went to the hospital with flowers to congratulate his wife and cuddle his newborn baby, he was told his wife was sill at the labour ward and that he could not see her.
On Tuesday, Awal, who had become a familiar face through several visits, made a final one to the ward.
“My wife was sitting on her bed. I asked her whether she had delivered, and she said ‘yes’!” Where is the baby? His wife replied grief stricken that the baby had died. He was later shown he remains of the dead baby.
His wife then told him that when she delayed in delivering, the doctor took a belated decision and operated upon her only o pull out a dead baby.
Awal has therefore vowed to spend his last cede to battle with the hospital at the courts.
“They need someone to stop them and I will do just that,” he says.
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Tony Aidoo appears in court
Last Tuesday, the about 57 years old Dr. Tony Aidoo, Former Defence Minister met face to face with James Adayuga a the Accra Circuit Tribunal over the Goal Traffic Lights Gun pulling case, writes ‘The Crusading Guide’, a bi-weekly.
Drayage, a former security guard with Derrick Rangers is standing trial on a charge of deceit of public officer brought against him by the police in the name of the Republic.
Dressed in ash political suit with brown shoes Dr. Tony Aidoo walked quietly to chairman Moro Sublime’s court only to be told that there was no sitting that day. The ex-defence minister waited calmly for a few minutes in the courtroom till the prosecutor appeared. The case was adjourned to 5th April 2001.
It would be recalled that on the 8th February this year, Tribunal Chairman Ziblim Imoro asked DSP Sarpong the prosecutor whether Dr. Tony Aidoo was in town and could be readily made available if the need arose.
Prosecutor DSP Sarpong, not sure of Dr. Tony Aidoo’s availability however, assured the court he would produce him if need be.
Dr Aidoo’s appearance in court was prompted by DSP Sarpong’s narration of how the gun-pulling act was performed by the ex-Defence Minister.
In another development the Defence council for Adayuga, Mr Alex Quaynor stated categorically that he would subpoena Tony Aidoo to court if prosecution did not produce him in court.
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Sikkens’ 7b cedis rip-off
The independent Daily Guide reports that its investigations has revealed a rape of the nation that runs very close to 7 billion cedis by a local hardworking private entrepreneur.
The company, Glostar Aluminium Systems Limited, owned by Mr Kwame Bamfo popularly known as Sikkens is in the news, and is alleged to be the beneficiary of this “windfall” from the national treasury.
Glostal Aluminium, it was revealed won the bid to supply materials to refurbish the State House, whose $25 million World Bank Loan couldn’t be accounted for fully by both Kwame Peprah and Moses Asaga.
Investigations showed that Kittoe, Kyere & Company Limited, Quantity Surveyors and Construction Central Management Consultants, who happened to be the consultants to the project disclosed that the cost of the materials were valued at 2.9 bn cedis.
Glostar Aluminium was consequently paid 2 bn cedies on September 22, 2000 for the supply of the materials.
On November 21, 2000, exactly two months after the first payments, 7,278,922,371.85 cedis was again paid to Glostar Aluminium bringing the total cost of the material to 9,278,922,371.85 cedis, resulting in an over payment of 6,301,677,470.85 cedis.
When the Guide reached out to Mr Kwame Ofosu Bamfo, he was not available for comments but his Technical Manager, Kweku Botchwey said they were aware of the allegation, and added that it is only the Managing Director who can comment on it.
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‘NDC will win back supporters’
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) will strive during the next one-and-half years to bring back to the party its supporters who joined other political parties, in its bid to re-annex political power in the year 2004, reports the party’s mouthpiece, The Ghanaian Democrat.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem, Dr. Ato Quarshie, who said this, pointed out that the NDC has resolved those differences that resulted in the exodus of such supporters to the party’s political opponents.
Dr. Quarshie, who said this in an interview in Accra, explained that considering the sweeping victories of the NDC in the 1992 and 1996 elections in comparison to its defeat in the 2000 polls, it has become evident that a sizeable proportion of their supporters joined and voted for the other political parties.
“The party has acknowledged that differences that emerged on its front prior to the last general elections did not go down well with a section of the rank and file who opted for other political parties, resulting in our defeat in the last Presidential and Parliamentary elections”, he said.
Dr Quarshie, a member of the national re-organisation committee, said the fact that about 43 per cent of the electorate voted for the party in the last polls indicates it can recapture political power if it works hard during the next three years to win back its supporters in other parties.
The MP said the mass of such supporters who joined other political parties with the hope that a new government would bring relief to their hardships are disappointed since the prices of goods and services have increased considerably since the beginning of the year.
He said the NDC has been vindicated that the poor economic state that characterised its administration was due to shocks on the external conditions as the new government has attested to in its recent budget statement to the state.
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Apraku terrorises workers of Trade Ministry
The private-owned bi-weekly, ‘The Independent’ says with only four months into the new administration, there is a sudden lull in the performance of workers of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The refrain now is “consolidate yourself before thinking about your routine assignments”.
Others too who have been affected by the reign of terror being pursued by the new sector minister, are resigned to their fate: “it’s now been established that it’s a curse to have accepted a job under the old NDC regime”.
In-depth investigations at the premises of the Ministry confirmed that what started as mere rumours of computer analysts, administrative officers, messengers, drivers and cleaners being relieved of their duties indeed have basis in truth.
One of the affected staff – Mrs E. Shaw-Smith, a Management Systems Analyst in the Gateway Secretariat has since the termination of her appointment on the 20th of March 2001, petitioned the Commissioner of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
In the said petition copied to the office of the president and Chief of Staff, Mrs. Shaw said she wants the Minister to explain to her exactly why her appointment was terminated. “I do not feel that it is the Minister’s prerogative to terminate my appointment without an explanation”, the statement further explained.
“I would like the Minister to take note that when I packed up and left the United States for Ghana, it was to assist the country regardless of what administration was in power. If this current administration feels that my services are no longer needed, then I will take them elsewhere. Please take note that the President has been advocating for Ghanaians overseas to come back home. With this sort of track record I do not think I will advise any of my friends to come back home”, part of the petition read.
The Independent further discovered that almost every department of the Ministry is affected by the so-called restructuring as stated by the chief Director, Mr. Dalrymple-Hayfron.
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