2 in ¢518m scandal
$130m Loan for housing units
Convict mums to be freed
Soldier escapes trial for armed robbery
ECOWAS owe ADB $70bn
Scorching Sahara…Ghana to pay 20bn a year … Obasanjo’s children behind deal
5,000 ghost names at AMA
I'm not guilty…Dr Yankey pleads at Quality Grain trial
Showdown against Rawlings
¢800m 'job' shared by 45 contractors.
Supt. Awuni in trouble
Hackman did not know he was being taped
The Crusading GuideLatest on Kume Preko
Nana Konadu's 'London outburst'
2 in ¢518m scandal
The Ministry of Works and Housing has exposed a financial scandal in the execution of the Tema Coastal Reclamation works by Marine Construction Company Limited, reports The Daily Graphic.
According to the paper, the deal involves the alleged stealing of state funds totalling ¢518,385,480 by the Managing Director of the company, Mr Langford Kofi Amoako. The Chief Technical Adviser of the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr George Gogo Nai, has been cited for abetment.
Mr Nai has since appeared before court while a bench warrant has been issued for the arrest of Mr Amoako who failed to show up in court.
The facts of the case are that the company was, in 1998, awarded a contract to execute the Tema Coastal Protection Works by the Ministry.
Work on the project, which involved the construction of armour rock blockage with gravel filing, was to have been completed by March 1999.
The contractor did the armour rock blockage without the gravel filling and thus made the work insecure.
Mr Amoako, after this, allegedly wrote to the ministry on November 20, 2000 complaining about the threat posed by erosion to the work done without the gravel filling.
Without requesting for any bids of quantity, the Chief Technical Adviser, Mr Nai, allegedly gave a verbal approval to Mr Amoako’s request and asked him to undertake the job.
It is alleged that almost a month after the approval was given Mr Amoako submitted an inflated claim of ¢1,102,251,576.00 to the ministry for payment in respect of the work done.
Contrary to established procedures which involve the vetting of claims, Mr Nai allegedly scaled down the claim to ¢833,514,000 and directed the ministry’s quantity surveyor to prepare a certificate of payment, creating the impression that the
Work had been completed.
The sector Minister, Mr Kwamena Bartels, suspected foul play when the issue was brought to his notice.
When a quantity surveyor was sent to check on the project, it was detected that only 60 per cent of the gravel filling had been done. The value of the work done was put at ¢315,128,520.
More…/
$130m Loan for housing units
A loan agreement between the Government of Ghana and EURO-AM Corporation of Delawars, USA, for an amount of US$130 million for the construction of 15,000 high rise low-cost housing units in the country, was on Wednesday laid before Parliament.
According to the Daily Graphic, the agreement, which was laid by the Deputy Minister of Works and Housing, Madam Theresa Ameley Tagoe, was immediately referred to the Joint Finance Committee and the Committee on Works and Housing for the necessary parliamentary scrutiny.
It is anticipated that should the agreement be approved by Parliament, it would help to accelerate the growth of the housing sector and thereby reduce the pressure for accommodation, particularly in the nation’s capital, Accra, and the regional capitals.
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
Convict mums to be freed
The Ghanaian Times says nursing mothers in prison, may be granted amnesty by the President depending on the nature of their crimes.
This is due to the fact that the prison environment is not conducive for the exclusive six-month breastfeeding prescribed by Parliament.
It is recalled that the ‘Times’ reported on its front page on May 29, that there were nine babies between the ages of one and 10 months in various prisons across the country.
The children were born in prison by their mothers who were tried and convicted to jail while pregnant.
According to Legislative Instrument (LI) 1667, Breastfeeding Promotions Regulations 2000, a baby should be exclusively breast fed for six months.
And for a mother to do this, she should be well fed on nourishing food and live in healthy conditions, which do not exist in the prisons.
In an interview on the issue, the Minister of the Interior, Alhaji Malik Yakubu, said that he would contact the Director of Prisons on the background of the women for submission to the President for study.
At the moment, four babies are in the Nsawam Female Prison – two of them are a month old, one six months and the other 10 months.
The Kumasi and Akuse Female Prisons have a baby each, both a month old.
Sekondi Female Prison has two who are two and three months each while Ho Female Prison has a seven-month old baby.
The crimes of the mothers ranged from stealing, dishonestly receiving, causing harm and escaping from lawful custody.
More…/
Soldier escapes trial for armed robbery
One of the three soldiers arrested and placed in military custody for their involvement in an armed robbery at the Tema Industrial Area, has escaped, reports the Times.
Lance-Corporal Akpabli escaped from the Michel Camp two weeks after his arrest, after overpowering a guard who was escorting him and the two others for trial to the Military Police headquarters at Burma Camp.
All the three soldiers are from the First Battalion of Infantry.
Three civilians allegedly recruited the soldiers for the robbery at a warehouse at the Tema Heavy Industrial Area on May 18.
The soldiers, after their arrest, were handed over to the military while the civilians were put before a Tema Circuit court for prosecution.
A source told the ‘Times’ that after L/C Akpakbli’s escape, five guards who were on duty at the camp’s guardroom were also placed in military custody on suspicion of aiding his escape.
They were kept for three days and released.
More…/
ECOWAS owe ADB $70bn
The 16 members of the Economic Community of West African States owe African Development bank 70 billion dollars with Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire accounting for over 70 per cent, says another front-page story of the Ghanaian Times.
A report issued by the African Development Bank (ADB) at the just-ended annual meeting of the bank group in Valencia, Spain, said countries with the highest external debts in relation to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are guinea-Bissau (370 per cent); Cote d'Ivoire (150 per cent) and Sierra Leone (140 per cent)
The report said 12 out of the 16 countries are ranked among the highly indebted poor countries in the world, making their plight more deplorable and recovery prolonged and doubtful.
The report noted that debt servicing, which takes an average of 30 per cent of the export earnings of the 16 countries is three times more than their education budgets.
The only bright spot in the report is the revelation that tourism "seems to be fast becoming a major sources of income in several countries."
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
Scorching Sahara…Ghana to pay 20bn a year … Obasanjo’s children behind deal
The Independent writes that another fallout from the Sahara Energy contract that has emerged from Energy Minister Kan-Dapaah’s presentation to Parliament last week is the issue of management fees.’
The paper says though the Minister has promised to make the Sahara contract available for the scrutiny of the Parliamentary Select Committee of Mines and Energy, one twist that may escape the Committee is that of management fees to be paid to Sahara Energy.
Investigations by the paper show that under the deal, Sahara is set to receive about 20 billion cedis (US$2.8 million) a year of the tax payer’s money for merely lifting crude oil to Ghana.
Throughout the crude oil lifting history of Ghana, the erstwhile Petroleum Department, Ghana Supply Commission, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and recently the Tema Oil Refinery have lifted crude oil to Ghana without the payment of any management fees by the state.
At a time when such unbelievably astronomical management fees are to be paid to Sahara, the Government is getting ready to lay off seventy per cent of GNPC staff.
Ironically, the 20 billion cedis that is to be paid to Sahara as management fees could pay the salaries of all GNPC staff for the next five years.
What even makes the Sahara deal more scorching is the fact that if GNPC had been paid management fees just as Sahara for lifting crude oil to Ghana for the twelve years that it did, amounting to over 110 million barrels, the state-owned Corporation would have received about 215 million cedis (US$30 million).
The paper says one of the reasons Energy Minister Kan-Dapaah has proffered for GNPC incurring a debt of over US$2 million with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is that the Corporation lacks the needed expertise to life crude oil.
However sources at the GNPC vehemently debunked the Minister's assertion.
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
5,000 ghost names at AMA
Although the former government placed an embargo on employment within the public sector in 1999, some officials at the Information Management System (IMS) office of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), managed to put the names of about 5,000 people on its pay roll that every year, reports The Evening News.
The papers says its investigations have revealed that some of the names on the pay roll of the Assembly are “ghost” names.
Others who got into it at the time have been paying percentages to the officers involved, from the salaries they receive through the deal.
The main architects of the operations are the twin brothers, Ransford and Rexford Koufie of the Personnel and Computer Departments respectively and Mr Atiogbe in-charge of Research.
Ransford, it is alleged, is responsible for the names being placed on the pay roll while his brother Rexford allegedly collects payment receipts from debtors and manipulates them in the computer room.
Three of such officers mentioned in the deal are Madam Georgina Mensah, in charge of preparation of the Assembly’s pay roll, David Asare Duah and Edmund Ahiadeke, both of the IMS office of the Assembly.
These officials, according to sources are behind all the deals in the computer room of the Assembly.
“Evening News” investigations have it that these people were strategically placed in those positions to facilitate the under-dealings of Mr Elleblu, the former Director of Finance of the Assembly and his clique.
More…/
I'm not guilty…Dr Yankey pleads at Quality Grain trial
Dr George Sipa-Yankey, former Director of the Legal Sector Private and Financial Institutions Division, Ministry of Finance, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with five other former government officials to fraudulently cause financial loss of over 22 million dollars to the state in the Quality Grain scandal.
He was making his first appearance at the trial in which he has been charged together with Mr Ibrahim Adam, former Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Samuel Dapaah, former Chief Director, MOFA, Mr Kwame Peprah, former Minister of Finance, Nana Ato Dadzie, former Chief of Staff and Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, former Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre.
The fast-track High court, presided over by Mr Justice D.K. Afreh granted him bail in self -recognisance as had been extended to the other accused persons.
They have all pleaded not guilty to the charge of aiding Mrs Renee-Cotton (Woodard) to dupe the state of over 22 million dollars.
Meanwhile the court has adjourned proceedings till Monday, June 11, when full hearing is expected to begin.
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
Showdown against Rawlings
A massive demonstration is to be held in Accra on Tuesday June 11, exactly eight days after ex-President Rawlings verbal rumblings at the Arts Centre in Accra last June 4, says The Daily Guide.
According to the organizers they have decided to protest against the unwarranted effusions of the former President which they see as inherent threats against state security and national unity, which were expressed in the statements he made at the Arts Centre last Monday.
Some of the personalities involved in organising the demo are Iddrisu Musa Superior, Lord Conney, and Nii Yemoh a son of the late Kodjo Sardine. The demo will also attract other personalities whose names were not immediately made available to the Guide.
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
¢800m 'job' shared by 45 contractors
The Ministry of Housing is currently investigating the circumstances under which the Government of the National Democratic Congress last year awarded an ¢800 million sewerage system project to 45 different contractors.
The Chronicle says the contract awarded in October last year was aimed at connecting about 500,000 units of Government properties to the central sewerage system in Accra.
Already tongues are wagging over how the cash was spent and the bid process that selected the 45 contractors to handle the job, since it has now been established that not all the contractors finished the assignment given them.
Information available to the Chronicle indicate that some contractors did not do any work at all even though their names are on paper as having been awarded the contract, which according to Chronicle sources was to span a period of six weeks.
Chronicle says it is reliably informed that the contractors who did not finish their assignments managed to process certificates of payment to the Ministry of Finance early this year ostensibly to collect money for no work done, but were rejected by the new authorities.
Information available to the Chronicle suggests that the investigating team is facing some problems, as some documents covering the contracts could not be traced. Frantic efforts are being made to retrieve the documents since there is the strong belief that some unscrupulous elements might be hiding them.
Chronicle says its sources had it that the contract which was part of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework Project (MTEF), was fraught with fraudulent deals.
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
Supt. Awuni in trouble
One of the best known public-friendly faces of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Angwubotoge Awuni, would starting from today be fighting not only for his career but also his good name, writes The Accra Mail.
Awuni, who is head of the Police Public Relations Department in the Ashanti Region, is in double agony. In a surprising and some say suspicious move just before Election 2000, the man known to Ghana's media as "one of us" was transferred to Kumasi by the police administration under the former Inspector general of Police, Peter Tinganaba Nanfuri. Now under the new administration of Acting Inspector General Ernest Owusu Poku, he is facing a trial and has been ordered by the police administration not to talk to his colleagues in the media.
Three weeks of intense investigations into the circumstances surrounding Awuni's plight revealed that he was transferred to Kumasi in the heat of last year's election in circumstances that smacked of victimisation of a press and public friendly officer.
He endeared himself to the information hungry media corps of the nation's capital with his openness and in the process might have been stepping on sensitive toes.
Friends of Awuni at the police Headquarters have suggested that the remote cause of Awuni's transfer to Kumasi can be traced to a programme he prepared sometime last year for a passing out ceremony of police officers.
The former IGP Mr Peter Nanfuri complained that the programme was of low standard and verbally assaulted Awuni for the alleged poor work. His sympathisers have explained that he was given extremely short notice, making it impossible for him to assemble an elaborate programme, but that did not save him and only hastened his Ashanti Region transfer 'punishment".
Awuni, who was a fairly regular guest on Accra FM stations, might have been considered as being "too vocal" by the normally tight-lipped police service.
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
Hackman did not know he was being taped
The Voice says it has gathered that Hon. Hackman Owusu Agyeman is now sweating and cursing his stars for openly castigating former President Rawlings.
In an interview, Hon John Achuliwor, MP for Navrongo Central and Deputy Minister of Roads and Communications admitted that the Hon Hackman Owusu Agyeman never knew and never even realised that he was being recorded otherwise he would have been more diplomatic and tactful.
He said, it was normal for Hackman to respond but the way it was done would have been the least of Hackman and blamed the outburst on the journalist who interviewed him.
Hon Achuliwor said, as human beings they can have a lot of patience but one in a while they could also lose it, adding "we all have two sides to our lives. We have the diplomatic bit that normally we have to play and sometimes you can also lose your temper because we are also human beings".
He said Hon Hackman should be worried because the statement he thought he was making in private is now being blown on the airwaves causing the public to doubt his gentlemanly nature.
The Deputy Minister, however, justified the response by Ms Ohene and Hon Hackman saying, "you don't accuse somebody and expect him or her to keep quiet. He too has the right to be heard."
Meanwhile, the Minority leader in Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has sharply condemned Hackman's response and threat describing it as unnecessary.
He said that not even President Kufuor could strip off the privileges that ex-President Rawlings is enjoying let alone Hon Hackman, adding "those privileges are bequeathed to any ex-President by the people of Ghana and are irrevocable unless by the same people through their representatives in parliament".
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com
Latest on Kume Preko
The Crusading Guide reveals that Charles Lantei Annen, the Commando alleged to have shot dead the fourteen year old JSS pupil, Ahunu Hongar, on May 11, 1995, during the Kume Preko demonstration in Accra, is sure to appear today or tomorrow with four others before the police in connection with the Kume Preko killings.
According to police sources, Lantei and four other' names were mentioned by Joseph Asamani, aka "Black Shirt" when he was arrested in connection with Kume Preko Killings.
The source said the Military High Command upon request from the police will produce Lantei and the four others.
However, our source had been unable to establish whether Coporal Ahianyevi, formerly of the Castle Security, who was actually arrested by the Police on the day for the killings, would be among the four to be produced by the Military Police.
The source said Lantei and his accomplices will be questioned and their statements taken.
Readers will recall that Cpl. Ahianyevi was arrested by the Police on the day of the killings, and when the Police subsequently recommended his prosecution, the NDC government issued a White Paper saying since Ahianyavi was on leave on the day of the killings; he was not officially assigned any duty, and for that matter the Military was to take disciplinary measures against him.
More…/
Nana Konadu's 'London outburst'
The Crusading Guide in another story says controversial Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, the ubiquitous ex-First Lady, has taken advantage of her recent visit to the United Kingdom to "castigate" the wife of President John Agyekum Kufuor, Mrs. Theresa Kufuor.
At a meeting with the Executives of the UK Branch of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Nana Konadu reportedly compared her lifestyle to that of Mrs. Kufuor and said that she regularly received gifts and so could dress much more elegantly than Mrs. Kufuor.
Nana Konadu also asserted at the meeting - which was held on May 1, 2001 at Randolph Road, Maidaville, London at 6.30pm - that because her family was cash-strapped, her pals often dashed her some money to pay for her overseas medical bills.
On the numerous publications about the NDC by the Ghanaian media, especially the private ones; she said all such stories were fabricated ones and contained no iota of truth in them.
She bemoaned the treatment she claimed was meted out to her by the Ghana Mission in London whenever she travelled there. Mrs Rawlings disclosed to the party executives that she often boarded taxis and that the mission only occasionally gave her protocol treatment.
At the end of her address, she was bombarded with a few questions by some of the top figures at the meeting.
GRi…/
Send your comments to news@ghanareview.com