HOW AFRICAN AUTOMOBILE DEFRAUDED ECG, MPs!

African Automobile Limited (AAL), the company that the government of Ghana is happily negotiating to pay tens of millions of dollars to because the government is too afraid to go to court, in the recent past duped several members of parliament. It was also caught red-handed stealing electricity from the Electricity Company of Ghana!

AAL, the Daily Searchlight can reveal, in 2001 received about $400, 000.00 from the parliament of Ghana to deliver twenty Mitsubishi Pajeros to the MPs who had opted to buy the vehicles from AAL with their car loans.

This newspaper has learned that it took two years for AAL to deliver the vehicles, and when it did, the vehicles delivered were far inferior to the one the company had promised, a situation that led to a long drawn out legal tussle!

Among some of the MPs who were swindled isHonourable Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, Member of Parliament for Assin North, and ironically, one of the crusaders against the judgment debt fraud being perpetrated on Ghanaians.

At the same time, AAL is also the same company that engaged in an illegal connection of electiricity, causing the state huge financial loss to the state. This is how the GNA reported the matter on April 12, 2010.

ECG accuses African Automobile of illegal electricity connection.

The Management of the Electricity Company of Ghana will push for custodial sentence for officials of African Automobile Limited (AAL), for an alleged illegal connection of electricity to their premises.

Mr. CephasGakpo, Managing Director of ECG told journalists that the company would go all out to ask for a harsh sentence for the officials to serve as a deterrent to others, who are engaged in such nefarious activities. Currently, the ECG loses GH₵78million annually as a result of theft of electricity.

Mr. Gakpo said AAL, sole agent for Mitsubishi vehicles in Ghana, was disconnected by ECG about five years ago for non- payment for power consumed, but the company went ahead to connect electricity behind the meter at its bonded warehouse to its sales and services point located about 150metres away. To conceal the connection, officials of the company were said to have dug the ground and buried the electricity conductors through a PVC pipe.

The illegal connection, he said have robbed the company of large revenue, adding that an assessment would be done to determine how much had been lost.

Mr. Gakpo said ECG officials detected that PVC pipe across a drain and discovered the concealed electrical conductors after the pipe was cut open. Officials of AAL declined to comment on the issue.