New Patriotic Party (NPP) has accused President
John Dramani Mahama of using state funds to pay Zoomlion Ghana Limited for no
work done.The NPP alleged that the money which was Gh¢448,150,762 was
used as management service fees without any legal document supporting
it.
According to the NPP, cabinet gave go-ahead for the use of 10 per
cent of the District Assembly’s Common Fund allocated to the Youth Employment
Agency (YEA) for the illegal payment to Zoomlion.
NPP noted however, that
the public was told after a ministerial committee report on Youth Employment and
Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) in 2013 that the contract had been
terminated.
“However, this pre-election decision to pay off GH¢448
million to the company demonstrates that the associated presidential directives
were lies. Zoomlion, on the average, earns a management fee of GH¢4,979.45 per
employee per year.
“This means that each worker has to earn GH¢414.95 in
order to match the monthly management fee earned by Zoomlion for managing each
worker! In actual fact most of these workers earn a meagre amount, between
GH¢200-300 per head per month,” the NPP revealed.
At a press conference
yesterday in Accra, the NPP stated that a whopping sum of GH¢62 million of this
illegal amount was paid by the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) to
the company.
Addressing journalists on the theme: “Stop Mahama Draining
the Coffers In Another Election Year,” the party’s Policy Advisor, Boakye
Kyeremateng Agyarko, said: “This amount is meant to pay for 45,000 workers who
are actually on the payroll of the various district assemblies. So, the
assemblies are responsible for paying the wages of the 45,000 and not the
service provider.
"…This act of corruption is a matter for which
Ghanaians must demand answers.”
According to the NPP, the board of the
Youth Employment Agency (YEA) was asked to take all necessary steps to ratify
the sanitation contract for 2013 to 2015.
Mr. Agyarko disclosed that
“this illegal payment for non-existent contract is related to a previous scheme
dating back to 2012, the same year that some $2billion of unbudgeted funds were
spent in a reckless and corrupt way to fund John Mahama’s election
bid.”
He added: “The Auditor General’s report on the infamous Ghana Youth
Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) highlighted the
misappropriation of public funds, fraudulent transfers and illegal payments to
various entities linked to friends and families of President John
Mahama.”
Mr. Agyarko further disclosed that on April 12, 2013 a
five-member Impact Assessment Committee was set up by the then Minister for
Youth & Sports, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, to investigate the GYEEDA
scandal.
According to him, the Committee’s report, which was submitted on
July 16, 2013 recommended that the specific contract involving Zoomlion and
Better Ghana Services be referred to the Attorney-General for advice for
prosecution.
Mr. Agyarko noted that a Value-for-Money Committee was also
formed under the headship of Kobby Acheampong who recommended the cancellation
of the GYEEDA modules, including Zoomlion’s sanitation modules.
He
mentioned that in a memorandum which Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah sent to Cabinet in May
this year, it recommended the cancellation of modules after having properly
scrutinised the activities of the modules and engaged the executives of the
affected modules.
“I carried out the recommendation to cancel the
affected modules exactly two days after the Value-for-Money Committee’s
recommendation to do so was brought to my attention,” Afriyie Ankrah was
reported to have said.
The NPP revealed that it has in its possession a
copy of the letter dated November 29, 2013, signed by Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah to
the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Zoomlion, and copied to the Chief of Staff,
Attorney-General and Kobby Acheampong who recommended the suspension of payment
of contracts on ICT and Sanitation modules.
Mr. Agyarko noted that in May
2016 a memo to Cabinet, revealed that Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah made it clear that
the GH¢448m which was paid to Zoomlion was illegal.
“In fact, the
Minister said in the memo that the Executive Chairman of Zoomlion Ltd admitted
in a meeting with the Committee that, Zoomlion’s two-year renewable contract,
which began in 2006, was not renewed in 2013.
He confirmed to the meeting
that payment had not been made for services rendered from 2013 to 2015 (i.e.,
the period for which a binding contract did not exist between the company and
the State,)” Mr. Agyarko noted.
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