The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has since July initiated investigations into the mode of award of two contracts estimated at about 1.2 billion cedis by the Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA).
The contracts awarded in November last year, without recourse to the Municipal Tender Board were: spraying and disinfestations of the refuse disposal site at Kpone, which was 802 million cedis and the development of computerised system for billing, payment management and revenue mobilisation, which was about 400 million cedis.
The investigations are to find out whether in spending such a colossal amount of the taxpayer’s money, the administration conformed to laid down regulations or if they had authority to ignore the Municipal Tender Board, which was in place.
SFO sources told the GNA at the weekend that 10 officers including the Municipal Chief Executive Samuel Evans Ashong Narh, who was on Saturday honoured together with the Minister in charge of fisheries, Ishmael Ashitey (MP) for their outstanding performances Municipal Co-ordinating Director, Alhaji Husseini, Municipal Finance Officer, Samuel Aryee, and other departmental heads had appeared before the investigations panel. Each official was accompanied by the TMA’s legal officer.
The source explained that irrespective of the fact that the executive committee of the assembly later rectified their administrative action does not make it right
Source: GhanaWeb
