GETFund dumps Ayariga’s questionable projects

Mahama Ayariga The authorities of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) have rejected a directive from the Education Ministry to build classroom blocks in Deputy Education Minister, Mahama Ayariga’s constituency. A letter sighted by Joy News and signed by the GETFund Administrator Sam Garba in response to the directive states the proposed projects are indefensibly and outrageously expensive. The letter is in response to one dated January 26, 2012 and signed by the Chief Director of the Education Ministry, Major (rtd) M. S. Tara. In that letter, the Chief Director relays the ministry’s approval for the construction of three basic schools in Bawku in the Upper East region at a total cost of 895,000 Ghana cedis. Whilst two of the three projects are estimated to cost GHS325,000 each, the third is said to cost 245,000 cedis. But in a letter addressed to the Education Minister and dated January 31, 2012, the GETFund Administrator Sam Garba said the cost of the projects is completely in discord with standard costs for projects with those specifications. He reminded the Minister of a stakeholders meeting at which they agreed that a standard price of GHS150,000 should be the cost of a six-unit classroom block with ancillary facilities based on the adopted design. He added that 17 six-unit classroom blocks authorized by the GETFund for construction in the Bawku Municipal Assembly were procured at prices within that range. “At any rate, 17 projects for only one assembly in a space of three years is clearly one too many,” the letter stated. According to Mr Garba, “The average for MMDAs (Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies) is four projects. The authorization is unsustainable, neither on grounds of equity, nor of those on need”.

Unravelling the Woyome saga - Police grill Waterville MD

Mr Woyome Investigations into the GHc51.2 million judgement debt paid to businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome were taken to another level when the Managing Director of Waterville Ghana, Mr Andreas M. Orlandi, was grilled by the police for four hours Friday. The interrogation, conducted at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) started 8:30am and ended 12:30pm. Mr Orlandi is expected to return to meet the investigative panel next week to provide documents in respect of some of the issues raised in connection with the payment. After studying the documents, the panel will arrange a cross-examination of the witnesses who have so far appeared before the investigative panel. The Daily Graphic was told by sources at the CID headquarters that the investigative panel wanted to know if, indeed Waterville had a contract with the government. Without giving details and the answers provided by Mr Orlandi, the sources said the panel sought to know whether or not the contract had, indeed, been abrogated. The panel also sought to know why and how the contract had been abrogated and the legal consequences, not only for the state but also any other interested party. Mr Orlandi was also questioned on the relationship between Waterville and Mr Woyome. “Members of the panel are currently reviewing the documents and statements Mr Orlandi made when he appeared before the panel Friday. He had also been told to produce some documents he forgot to bring along”, the sources said. Mr Orlandi is the eighth person to be interrogated by the CID investigative panel, led by its Director General, Commissioner of Police, Mr Prosper Agblor. Besides the principal actor in the brouhaha, Mr Woyome, others who have appeared before the panel include a Betty Mould-Iddrisu, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice during whose tenure the questionable judgement debt was paid, Yaw Osafo-Marfo, former Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, under whose tenure the alleged contract between the government and Waterville was entered into and abrogated and his deputy Mr Osei Bonsu Amoah. The rest are Chief State Attorney, Samuel Neequaye-Tetteh, the Director of Legal Services at the Finance Ministry, Paul Asimenu and Mrs Gifty Neequaye-Tetteh into whose account Woyome allegedly deposited GHc400, 000. They are currently standing trial alongside Woyome at the Financial Division of the Fast Track High Court. Neequaye-Tetteh has been charged with two counts of conspiracy and corruption of public officer, while his wife, Gifty and Asimenu have been charged with a count each of abetment of crime. They are currently on court bail and are to appear before the court on March 5, 2012. Daily Graphic

Ayariga blows $44m on Atlas

Another scandal of monumental dimensions is brewing at the Ministry of Education where a contract of $44million for the supply of Atlas books for Junior High Schools (JHS) has been awarded, with Deputy Minister of Education Mahama Ayariga ordering the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to look for money at all cost and pay. Mahama Ayariga, though in charge of Tertiary Education, was neck-deep in the supply of books to Junior High Schools, and this had raised eyebrows. He said five publishers had been contracted to “print text books for the pre-tertiary schools”. The cost of the Social Studies book was to be borne by the GETFund, which said it had no budget for the Social Studies Atlas book. The book itself did not meet the standards, according to sources, and it was likely to be rejected by the schools. “Under the terms of the contract, 50% mobilization is expected to be advanced to the publishers against advance payment guarantee from a financial institution. “Due to the urgency of the request, we trust that you will deal with the matter expeditiously,” Mr Ayariga wrote in a letter dated January 31, 2012, a few days after Betty Mould-Iddrisu had resigned as Minister, owing to the Alfred Agbesi Woyome GH¢51.2million gargantuan scandal. Questions however were being asked about the rationale behind buying $44million books for just one subject and why Ayariga was the person leading the crusade since he was not in charge of Pre-Tertiary Education, but Mrs Elizabeth Tetteh-Amoah, who recently lost her bid to represent Ati Mokwa constituency in Parliament at the NDC primary. Tongues were wagging as to why a single publisher, Approachers, was given a whopping $25milion of the contract. The five publishers and their allocations were Approachers Ghana Ltd, $25,000,000; EPP Books Services, $7,496,000; Winmat Publishers Ltd. $5,500,000; Adwinsa Publishers, $5,000,000; and Sedco Publishing Ltd., $1,000,000, all totaling $43,996,000. With a tone of urgency in his letter, Mr Ayariga directed GETFund to secure a loan for the purchase of the book from a financial institution. “It would be highly appreciated if you could take steps to source a loan facility to cover the advance mobilization not exceeding the prime interest rate of 17% p.a. interest,” he indicated in the letter he wrote on behalf of the then acting Education Minister, E.T. Mensah. But in response to the request, GETFund Administrator Sam Garba on February 2, 2012, rejected the request to take a loan to buy the books, saying that the organisation was not in a position to source funding from financial institutions. “All the necessary steps I need to take to expedite the procurement of funds for the project have been taken without success. “The GETFund Board of Trustees struck down any efforts to source a loan expressly for this at its meeting held on the 30th December, 2011,” Mr Garba stated. The Administrator called the bluff of Ayariga, saying that he would not put the matter before the Board chaired by Dr Kwabena Adjei, NDC National Chairman again. Strangely, the loan facility was being arranged by NDK Financial Services owned by a known NDC chieftain, Oko Nikoi Dzani. Approachers had already approached NDK asking for a loan of $12.5million with interest of 12 percent, making it one of the most expensive loans because of the currency. The process to acquire the Atlas book started from the Betty period and Ayariga was fast-tracking it before the new Minister, Lee Ocran, took office. “With reference to the meeting held at the GETFUND Secretariat with the Ministry of Education representative and chaired by the administrator of the GETFUND in December, 2011 and the subsequent discussions with the Chief Executive Officer of your reputable financial institution, I write to request for the aforementioned 50% advanced mobilization of the contract. The 50% of the contract sum is twelve million, five hundred thousand us dollars. The agreed interest to be borne by Approachers (Ghana) Limited is 12% per annum for a maximum period of 4 months,” Alfred Kojo Obeng, Managing Director, stated in a letter to NDK. In a letter dated February 22, 2012, sent to Ayariga, NDK Financial Services indicated that it was ready to pay 50% of the contract sum to all the five companies as mobilisation fee. But the GETFund Administrator said he was not ready to accept arrangement. Meanwhile, Daily Guide has learnt that all the companies are printing the books in India and China in order to maximise profits, instead of printing them locally. The Ghana Publishers Association is holding a meeting on the scandal today, Daily Guide can confirm.

Ghana's corrupt and negligent Ministers and Civil Servants

CP walked away without paying 284m Deutsche Marks in tax ...The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has established that Construction Pioneers Ltd (CP) was owing the government 284 million deutsche marks and GH¢5.2 million in tax liabilities at the time the government entered into an agreement to pay the company 94 million euros as settlement debts. Irrespective of this, CP was able to claim the 94 million euros without paying what was due the government in respect of its tax liabilities to the state. This came to light at the committee’s sitting Thursday at Parliament House. When asked why the amount was not deducted when CP’s claims came up for payment, Mr Enoch Cobbina, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, said documents for both the claims by CP and its tax liabilities should have been prepared simultaneously to enable the tax to have been deducted while the claims were being paid. He said, however, that the CP’s claims were prepared separately and as a result the company’s tax liabilities were not captured by officials in charge of the Public Sector Financial Management Systems of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies. Mr Cobbina conceded that he learnt about CP’s tax liabilities to the state as far back as 2005 in a report prepared by Mr James Quarshie, an official of the Ministry of Finance in charge of special duties, who compiled a report on CP’s activities. He said since parliamentary approval was not obtained before the tax was waived for CP to walk away without paying the tax liabilities, the action amounted to a breach of the Constitution which stipulates that only Parliament has the mandate to waive taxes in respect of companies in the country. Mr Cobbina said the Ministry of Finance authorised the payment based on a letter from the Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Justice because its officials were certain that the Attorney General had done her homework with due diligence before sending a memo to the Ministry of Finance to pay and they had no reason to doubt the integrity of the AG. At this juncture the chairman of the committee asked whether they could make payment of that colossal amount based only on the memo from the Attorney General and Minister of Justice which was signed without a witness and without a proper title, to which the Chief Director replied that, that was outside the normal practice. When the members of the committee asked for the authorisation limit for officials in respect of cheques, Mr S. P. Kyei, Director of Budget at the Finance Ministry, said directors at the ministry had authorisation limit of GH¢50,000 and any amount above that had to be referred to the higher authority such as the chief director whose authorisation limit was GH¢I00,000. He said a Deputy Minister’s authorisation limit was GH¢300,000 and any amount above that had to be referred to the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. Mr Kan-Dapaah and the committee members were surprised that basic controls such as insisting on the provision of supporting documents before payments were made as it was the practice in the payment systems, were breached. They wondered why the alacrity used to honour payments to companies like CP was missing when it came to retrieving monies due to government from such companies. Mr Kan-Dapaah called on public officials to put an end to such unpatriotic attitude and let the government’s interest become paramount in such matters.