Ghana News Agency maintains story is factual
Accra (Greater Accra)
12 December 2002- The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (A.M.A) on Wednesday
continued its exercise to retrieve tax owed it leading to the closure of
Millicom Ghana Limited and Scancom Ghana Limited, operators of Mobitel and
Spacefon respectively.
Both companies owed
the assembly a business operating permit fee of 2.5 billion cedis. The
exercise, which started on Tuesday with the temporary closure of the head
offices of Barclays and Standard Chartered banks on the high street in Accra,
was aimed at retrieving monies owed the assembly.
It was also to warn
corporate bodies operating within the Accra metropolis of their
responsibilities to pay taxes promptly. Mr. Parker Allotey, Public Relations
Officer of the A.M.A told GNA that, "the exercise will continue until all
monies owed the assembly is collected."
He said the Assembly
was prepared to accept negotiated payments with the two cellular phone
companies but cautioned that, "If they refuse to comply with our
directives they will have no option than to close down the two
organisations."
He also said that the
AMA task force would on Thursday descend on Ghana Telecom for a similar
exercise. A visit to the Millicom Ghana Limited and Scancom Ghana Limited by
the GNA indicated that the assembly's task force arrived at the premises of the
two companies as early as 0700hours to perform the exercise.
Workers and customers
that came to transact business with the companies were prevented from entering
the offices. Efforts made to talk the head of the task force proved futile.
Meanwhile in a statement signed by some of the telecom operators in the country
described the action by the AMA to shut down Mobitel and Spacefon as without
notice or due process.
Consequently, the
companies, Millicom Ghana limited, Scancom Limited, Capital Telecom Limited,
Celltel Limited and Western Telesystems Ghana Limited have filed a writ
challenging the legality of AMA's new tax and to restraint AMA from interfering
with their operation.
The statement said
the AMA has illegally levied a huge tax on every telecom user in Ghana through
the network operators and also discriminates against telecom operators by
seeking to charge on a per customer basis when almost all other such fees are
set on a flat basis depending on the type of business.
GRi.../
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Takoradi (Western
Region) 12 December 2002- The Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC) has
initiated plans to have professionals like lawyers, architects, bankers,
insurance brokers to export their services.
Kofi Essien, Acting
Western Region Zonal Officer of the GEPC, said this at a day's seminar
organised by the Export Finance Company (EPC) and the GEPC for about 100
manufactures drawn from the Western Region at Takoradi on Wednesday.
He said workshops to
that effect had been organised for these professionals and the modalities were
being worked out with the International Trade Centre (ITC) to start the process.
Essien said the GEPC
recognised the tremendous market potential offered by the ECOWAS sub-regional
market with an estimated population of 150 million.
He said in order to
take advantage of this potential and to realise the full benefit of the ECOWAS
Trade Liberalization Scheme (ECLS) the GEPC was undertaking a market survey in
the ECOWAS sub-region and market access facilitation for selected Ghanaian
producers in selected locations in the sub-region.
Mr. Essien said the
GEPC had plans to establish Internet based trade information and E-Commerce
system to enable the council to communicate and access information. Mr. Essien
said GEPC was working with companies in the manufacturing sector to access
procurement orders from international agencies like the Red Cross and the
United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNICEF).
He said four
companies have got orders from the Red Cross and the UNICEF and would be
exporting plastics and household utensils.
Mr Emmanuel Asiedu
Appiah, General Manager of the EFC, stressed the need for every country that
seeks to develop to have specialized institutions in place that would provide
custom-made solutions to exporters.
This missing gap, in
the economy of Ghana, he said, is what EFC and Alliance Generalo De Surveillance
(Ghana Limited) (AGDS) are attempting to fill for the Ghanaian exporters.
GRi.../
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Accra (Greater Accra)
12 December 2002- The Ghana News Agency says it stands by its story on the
Serious Fraud Office (SFO) report citing three officials of the Tema Municipal
Assembly (TMA) for causing 1.2 billion cedis financial loss to the State
through the award of two contracts by the assembly.
The officials
involved are Mr Samuel Evans Ashong Narh, Municipal Chief Executive, Alhaji
I.M.T. Husseini, Co-ordinating Director and Mr Samuel Aryee, Finance Officer,
all of TMA.
The Ghana News Agency
had filed a story on the commencement of SFO investigations into the awards of
the contracts in June and was, therefore, obliged to follow up till the report
was released.
The Agency,
therefore, made it a duty to check on the outcome persistently. Indeed the Tema
Office of the SFO was not ready to release the report but the Agency kept on
making many telephone calls to them and had to visit the Tema SFO on six
different occasions.
It was because of the
persistence, that the SFO Tema was compelled to read extracts from the report
to the Agency, claiming that if they released the report, the Tema
Correspondent of the Agency would go and make photocopies since he was a
Journalist.
The Agency was
reacting to a statement by Mr Kweku Baako Jnr., Editor of the Crusading Guide,
on a Ghana Television Breakfast Show programme on Tuesday 10 December.
The decision to come
out with the report was in line with GNA's principle of speed and accuracy.
This was not the first time the Agency had done such a thing. It did that
during the 2000 Elections when it came out with the provisional results
released at the collating centres before the Electoral Commission certified
them.
The Ghana News Agency
on Saturday November 30 carried a report on the complicity of the three
officials in the award of two contracts.
The two contracts
that were awarded in November 2001 were the spraying and disinfestations of the
final disposal site at Kpone, which was awarded in sum of over 900 million
cedis and the development of computerised system for billing, payment
management and revenue mobilisation at a cost of 300 million cedis.
The SFO report noted
that the spraying and disinfestations contract did not go through tender for
competitive bidding as required by the guidelines for the award of contracts by
district assemblies.
The report noted that
what the Municipal Chief Executive, the Co-ordinating Director and the Finance
Officer claimed was urgent and had to award that contract administratively,
without passing through the municipal tender board, could not be established,
because the issue of decommissioning of Kpone refuse dump had been planned
since 1998.
It explained that
there was a design plan by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the
Kpone refuse dump to be decommissioned, and the process started in 1999.
The TMA and the Tema
Development Corporation (TDC) had sought the assistance of industries and
companies within the municipality, which provided sand as well as money to buy
fuel for equipment to be used for the removal of refuse.
The SFO report said,
the contract which was awarded by the Co-ordinating Director, who had claimed
that he was directed by the Municipal Chief Executive, showed that there was no
competitive bidding.
According to the
report if the laid down regulations had been followed, such a huge some of
revenue being taxes levied on people would not have been spent.
The report pointed
out that if the contract had been given on tender, the assembly would have
referred them to the committee on the decommissioning exercise that had started
since 1999.
On the
computerisation contract which was undertaken by "A 5 Consult" in
Accra, the SFO report noted that there was no need for it, because the Land
Valuation Board (LVB) had been awarded the contract and had started to computerise
properties in the municipality at the cost of 580 million cedis.
It said for the three
officials to invite another contractor for the same job, constituted a
duplication of work and cost, adding, "We had no doubt about LVB who are
still doing their work".
The report said it
would be absurd for anyone to say that the computerisation system in the TMA
has been completed, while LVB who are still working, have not released their
softwares to the (TMA).
It noted that LVB is
the only acceptable body, by Constitution and law that should carry out
government valuation jobs. "We, therefore, accept their contract sum and
proposals", adding that the assembly was not releasing funds to the LVB to
enable it to complete the project on schedule.
The SFO in July this
year, initiated investigations into the mode of award of contracts at the total
cost of 1.2 billion cedis by TMA in November last year, which did not pass
through the TMA tender board.
In all, 10 officers
of the TMA including Mr Narh, Alhaji Husseini and Mr Aryee, as well as seven
other departmental heads of TMA appeared before the investigators.
GRi.../
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