NPP spends ¢6bn cedis on bungalows
Security
agencies alert public on scam group
Fake pension claims detected
$20,000 to MPs is 'state robbery'
Tema
Police arrest many in two-day swoop
Education
Service to remove ghost names from payroll
NPP spends ¢6bn cedis on bungalows
The Ghana Palaver says a colossal amount of
about ¢6 billion has, so far, been spent on the renovation and rehabilitation
works carried out on the Office of the President and the residencies of a few
members of the Executive, as well as some repairs on MP’s flats at Sakumono.
This, according to the NDC mouth piece, does
not include other “unknown” costs of the renovation works in some residencies,
where the names of the contractors are either not disclosed, or the amount
spent declared.
Under this category, on can find names like the
Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, whose residence was renovated by an
“unknown” contractor, at an “unknown” cost. The Vice-President reportedly, the
paper alleges chose to award the contract himself to the “unknown” company.
In the case of Mr J.H. Mensah, Minister of
Government Business (until Thursday’s reshuffle), although the amount spent is
about 402 million, he also chose to pick his own contractor, whose name does
not appear on any voucher, claims the paper.
The Palaver gives the breakdown of the works
undertaken at Mr Mensah’s house include the paving of a summer hut at a cost of
¢63 million and landscaping work at ¢33 million.
The Palaver further reveals that there is also
a queer case, in which someone, known to be a Boutique Operator, have been paid
almost 200 million cedis as a contractor for some repairs at the MPs flats at
Sakumono. The renovation at the newly-created Ministry of Women Affairs cost
over Ë1 billion.
GRi…/
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Daily Graphic
Security agencies alert public on scam group
The
security agencies have alerted members of the public, particularly business
executives and key officials of both public and private sector organisations to
the activities of numerous scam groups.
According to the Daily Graphic a minimum of four complaints
are received each week about the activities of these groups mostly after they
have succeeded in defrauding their victims.
David
Kingdom, a 61-year old half-caste has been in the centre of the activities of
the various groups, posing as an expatriate interested in doing business with
the prospective business executives.
Kingdom,
who has a Scottish father and an Akuapem mother, interchangeably uses Donald
Patt and Hans Mayor as the "supposed" investor. He is currently in
the custody of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) following one such
fraud case, which was published in the October 2nd edition of the
"Daily Graphic".
A
source at the BNI, which disclosed the methods used by the scam group said
their members access the addresses of business executives or manage to get
their business cards through which they establish contact.
The
fraudsters would usually call and pretend to be outside the country and request
for a particular product said to be in high demand in the purported country
from where they are supposedly, calling from.
The
caller would then direct the recipient to contact someone believed to have such
a product or who could assist. It said astronomical profit margins are always
quoted by the callers, thereby enticing people to fall prey.
The
source said the fraudsters usually package sand, seeds and oil, which they
label as special products from a foreign country.
It
said the unfortunate thing is that most of the people they cheat are
influential people including foreign executives, who would not like publicity.
GRi…/
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The Evening News reports that the Serious Fraud
Office (SFO) is investigating the circumstances that led to the alleged illegal
payment of pension allowances for 300 people in the Tamale Municipality.
The Controller and Accountant General's
Department in July 2001 detected that Mr Prince Sumani Iddrisu, accounts
assistant of the Pension Section at the Tamale Regional treasury has been
fraudulently signing invalidity forms which enabled some proxies to collect
pension from the banks on behalf of supposedly sick pensioners.
According to The Evening News the fraudulent
practice started back in 1999 and that about 80 per cent of the invalidity
forms were found to have been signed in 2001.
When the practice was detected in the Tamale
Pension administration, payment of pension to all those with forms suspected to
have been fraudulently signed were suspended.
As part of the investigations, the Controller
and Accountant General's Department referred those pensioners on the suspended
list to the SFO for further investigations. More…/
The Judicial Service, as part of its commitment
to riding its payroll of ghost names, is to embark on a head-count exercise
next month.
Consequently, a nine-member Budget Committee to
review its budget and conduct the exercise has been constituted with Justice
G.K. Acquah, a Justice of the Supreme Court, as chairman.
Briefing 'The Evening News' in Accra, the
Deputy Financial Controller and a Member of the Committee, Mr George K.
Fordjour said the exercise will begin in Accra and be extended to the regions.
He said the exercise, apart from the physical
head count, will include the administration of a questionnaire to ascertain the
true identity of personnel.
More…/
The government of the NPP has vowed not to
repeat mistakes of the NDC, which cost the country billions of cedis when the
former government’s appointees misused state facilities with impunity during
its regime.
As a first step towards that direction, the
office of the President in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, has set
up a sub-committee to control the use of entitlements of government appointees.
The Chief of Staff and Minister of Presidential
Affairs, Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, who disclosed this to The Evening News in an
interview, said the sub-committee is being chaired by Mr Osei Kwaku and Dr
Adombila Agambila, Deputy Ministers of Presidential Affairs and Finance
respectively.
He was speaking against the background that some
party delegates used state vehicles during the NPP's congress at Legon, in
Accra recently.
More…/
$20,000 to MPs is 'state robbery'
Mr I.K. Obeng, a former PNDC Secretary for
Religious Affairs, has described as "state robbery", the proposed
$20,000 to be given to Members of Parliament (MP) as car loans. He made the
observation in an interview with The Evening News in Accra Thursday.
According to him, the state is being robbed of
vital funds, which could be channeled into very important developmental
projects of urgent need.
He argued that $20,000 to 200 parliamentarians
which runs into a total of about ¢28 billion can be channeled into vital areas
of the economy to ease the economic pressure on Ghanaians.
Mr Obeng decried the situation where the lifestyle
of politicians took sudden turn the moment they entered into Parliament.
"A politician without a bicycle becomes rich overnight by becoming a
parliamentarian, a position he holds by virtue of being elected by the ordinary
people to serve them," he said.
GRi…/
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The Weekend Statesman reports that as public
outcry over the $20,000 vehicle loans for MPs gets heated, the Speaker of
Parliament, Peter Ala Adjetey, has defended the necessity for the loans saying
it is important that the MPs have their own means of transport to enable them
to discharge their parliamentary and constituency duties efficiently.
"Democracy is very expensive and our going
HIPC doesn't mean that certain necessities and obligations should not be
undertaken," he told The Statesman in an exclusive interview in Parliament
House on Wednesday, in reaction to public criticism against the decision by
Parliament to grant $20,000 loans to MPs to acquire vehicles.
"Without cars they can't visit their
constituencies and attend to parliamentary duties. If the state can give them
loans to discharge their fundamental duties, it should be implemented," he
said. The Speaker said this is not the first time that Parliament has provided
MPs with cars and "this should be done on its merits and not be rejected
on emotional and narrow political grounds.
More…/
Serious questions are being raised over the
rationale behind the interdiction of six employees of Ghana Telecom (GT) from
some branches of the company in Accra, according to the Weekend Statesman.
The six - three from Cantonments Exchange, one
from Dansoman Exchange and two from the headquarters - have been suspended for
their alleged role over its "One Go" post-paid mobile phone cards in
which some customers defrauded the company to the tune of over ¢90m.
According to The Statesman, its investigations
revealed that the customers, some of them foreigners, were connected upon
completion of all the necessary formalities, including the initial down
payments.
But those were the last payments they were to
make. Thereafter they accumulated as much as ¢90m over a period of time, then
transferred the phones to unsuspecting individuals and absconded.
But instead of the company looking for the
fraudsters, it rather swooped on the six employees who, company sources told
the paper, only carried out legitimate instructions.
Until
recently Ghana Telecom had no records of their clients with which they could
contact them in the event of default. Owing to these administrative lapses, the
interdiction of the six people has created considerable uneasiness among Ghana
Telecom staff.
Many of those who spoke to The Statesman blamed
poor management for the problems facing the company and argued that there has
been low quality management since the privatisation.
Since the divestiture of the 30 per cent to
G-Communication, a consortium of telecom operators made up of Telecom Malaysia,
Network Computer System and Alhaji Sulemana, NDC activist, the company has not
made the expected substantial improvement.
GRi…/
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The Nkawkaw Police are allegedly trying to
cover up a shooting incident involving six of their personal who went on an
unauthorised operation to extort money from chainsaw operators at Asubone Rail,
near Nkawkaw, early this month, reports The Ghanaian Chronicle.
The incident reportedly occurred when the six
armed policemen, who took advantage of the inaction of the Kwahu South District
Forestry Service to check the activities of illegal chainsaw operators, went to
the village on that fateful day and met the victims, Daniel Ahude and another
person (name undisclosed) felling a tree.
After seizing their ‘Dormon’ machine and other tools,
one of the policemen, Cpl. Anokye, allegedly shot Ahude in the leg at close
range without any provocation or resistance. Sensing danger that he might die,
the policemen and neighbours who rushed to the scene sent Ahude to the Nkawkaw
Holy Family Hospital for treatment.
According to the paper, when it visited Ahude
at the hospital, he could hardly speak, but managed to express his gratitude to
God that he is still alive, considering the serious nature of the wound he
sustained from the gunshot.
GRi…/
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Tema Police arrest many in two-day swoop
The
Ghanaian Times reports that the Tema Police have arrested 18 prostitutes and 14
suspected criminals in a two-day swoop to rid the municipality of deviants.
The
prostitutes were arrested on Tuesday in some hotels at communities eight and
nine following complaints of harassment by patrons of the hotels.
With
the assistance of personnel from the Ghana Tourists Board Office at Tema, the
team effected arrests in Prince, Gyatokrom, Ahomka, Felina and Kabanya Hotels,
all in Tema.
In
all 20 females were arrested for screening after which two were released. The
18 have been granted police bail and would be put before court soon.
Also,
at the "Little by little" town in Ashaiman, near Tema, 14 suspected
criminals were arrested in a shop where large quantities of Indian hemp were
found hidden. The suspected criminals allegedly sold bicycles in front of the
shop while they dealt in drugs inside the shop.
More.../
Education
Service to remove ghost names from payroll
The
Ghana Education Service (GES) has engaged the services of the National Service
Personnel to carry out fresh head count of teachers in schools.
This
forms part of the latest effort to eliminate ghost names from the GES payroll.
It is being backed by a four-member specialists at the GES Headquarters in
Accra who will monitor data that enter the computer payroll.
A source
at the GES told the Times in an interview that the information received would
be checked against the pay vouchers of the teachers to ensure that the real
people in the system get paid for work done.
The
task force, it said, was set up about two months ago to complement other
efforts being initiated by the service to streamline the issue of ghost names.
GRi…/
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