Ghana@50 Probe Stalls Sale Of Houses, Cars

• Mr Justice Isaac Douse, Chairman of the commission

Two witnesses have told the commission probing the activities of the Ghana @ 50 Secretariat that the commission's inquiry had sent fears into prospective buyers of the presidential houses and vehicles used for the anniversary celebration.

As a result, it was becoming increasingly difficult to offer them for sale to the public who harbour the perception that those things were being probed and, therefore, they risked losing any money should they go ahead to make any purchases.

The witnesses, the Chairman of the AU Development Consortium, Mr Stephen Sekyere-Abankwa, and the Chief Executive Officer of Fairllop Ghana Limited, Mr Eric Agyemang, therefore, appealed to the commission to inform the general public to discard the perception in order to attract buyers.

The commission invited the witnesses to find out from them their involvement with the Ghana @ 50 Secretariat.

The Chairman of the commission, Mr Justice Isaac Douse, however, disagreed with the witnesses and said the activities of the commission had not created any impediment in anybody's way.

Furthermore, he said, the commission had not placed an injunction on the sale of those properties so it was not an excuse for them to say that their inability to sell those things were as a result of the probe.

Mr Sekyere-Abankwa told the commission that the role of the consortium was to construct 30 presidential mansions at Ridge and finance the completion of another 30 presidential mansions at the AU village at La.

The consortium, which is made up of the Agricultural Development Bank, Prudential Bank and National Investment Bank, was established for the purpose of constructing the houses.

He said the consortium had so far sold two of the houses while six more were ready for sale. Mr Sekyere-Abankwa explained that the rest of the houses were left with some furnishing for them to be completed.

He said SSNIT delayed in giving them the value for the land from the initial stage because they were not sure that they had title to it.

Mr Sekyere-Abankwa said it was later that the consortium was given the value which enabled them to compute how much to sell the houses.

Justice Douse quickly questioned how SSNIT could claim not to have title to land they owned and stated that it was due to poor record keeping.

Mr Agyemang said he submitted proposal to bid for the supply of vehicles to the Ghana @ 50 secretariat, which his company won.

He said he received an order to supply the secretariat with 40 Jaguar X-type and that 50 per cent of the cost would be paid by the government.

He said later in March 2008, the balance was paid to his company by the secretariat. Mr Agyemang said later there was an advertisement in the newspapers about the sale of the vehicles, and his company bought the advertised vehicles in August 2008, although it had not paid for them.

He said ownership of the vehicles was transferred to his company in October 2008 but his outfit had not been able to sell them since they bought the vehicles in August.

He said it was after they had had ownership to the vehicles that the company started to put them out for sale. He said the company had difficulty in selling the vehicles when the commission started its probe.

He said prospective buyers then began to shy away from the vehicles, adding that they then proposed to the transition team to the government that 'if it so wish to take back the vehicles the company was prepared to do that'.

A member of the commission, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, asked whether there was a term in the contract of sale effected by the government that stated that they should sell the vehicles before paying.

Mr Agyemang responded that the agreement did not say the vehicles should be sold before paying the government. The Managing Director of PHC Motors, Mr Paul Pepera, who was also invited by the commission, said on April 11, 2006, the company received a letter from the office of the President to supply 35 Chrysler vehicles in connection with the anniversary celebration.

He said the company agreed that the government would pay 40 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 and another 40 per cent in the second quarter of the same year.

He said in November that year the company received the first 40 per cent payment from the government and later donated some Tata Indigo vehicles free of charge to the secretariat to support the anniversary.

Story : Michael Donkor
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