$15m AMA Scandal: JJ, Mills, Annan Accused

The controversial waste management contract between the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the City and Country Waste Limited (CCWL) has been long cancelled, but its ramifications are reverberating all the way to the doorsteps of the Founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). There are strong indications that the contract, which saddled the AMA with mountains of unpaid debt, was allegedly pushed down the road of causing financial loss by the long arms of former President Rawlings, his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and the former vice President and NDC flagbearer, John Evans Atta Mills with the alleged connivance of the Masai ‘warrior’ Eddie Annan. Documents available to the “Statesman” point to an executive manipulation in the execution of the multi-million cedi contracts secured through the Canadian government loan and guaranteed by the Government of Ghana. The $14,630,998 Canadian loan was used to procure waste disposal equipment and vehicles, through a Canadian company, Groupe Chagnon International Ltd, represented in Ghana by the chief executive of Masai, Eddie Annan. According to the Serious Fraud Office, former President Rawlings instructed Nat Nunoo Amarteifio, the then AMA Chief Executive to commit the Assembly into the contract ostensibly to rid the city of garbage. Nunoo-Amarteifio strongly protested that the deal was a bad one because the AMA’s budget could not support it. Nana Konadu is reported to have angrily accused him of sabotaging the government with his refusal to sign the contract. “The final pressure was allegedly delivered by the former Vice President who called Mr Amarteifio to the Castle and told him that the President wanted the contract signed and that if he Amarteifio would not sign the agreement, then he should quit the AMA before the President comes back from a visit he was taking abroad”, the report said. “If he decided to sign the contract however”, Prof Mills is alleged to have instructed “then a picture of the signing should be taken and sent to the President before the President got back to Ghana”. It was at this stage, Nunoo Amarteifio told investigators, that he gave in and signed the contract.