Railway Officials Sweat Under Pressure
The acting MD had tried to explain to the committee members that the bad financial performance was as a result of the company's huge indebtedness to a number of companies and individuals, which had crippled the operations of the company.
'We are not able to operate because of non-availability of rail tracks to generate enough revenue to run the company, yet we have to spend money to meet some administrative cost because the company has not folded up,' he noted.
He explained to the committee that currently the company with staff strength of 1,982 runs on a limited 70km but with such a staff strength they should have been covering 1,000km.
He said with this limitation, the company was overburdened with surplus of about 1,200 staff members which the government was helping the company to pay them every month, even though those workers are grossly under-utilised.
The acting managing director said the company did not have any assets now as the regulator, Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA) has taken over all its assets making the company to suffocate under huge debts.
The Railway Company officials were also blasted by the committee members for not making any efforts to prepare its accounts for the year 2007-2012 for scrutiny but just presented only 2006 audited accounts for consideration by PAC.
The explanation from the officials of the Railway Company was that there was no motivation for workers in addition to the huge indebtedness of the company that really stalled the preparation of the accounts for the company to be sent to the Auditor-General and subsequently to parliament.
The chairman of the committee, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, said it was against the law not to prepare one's audited accounts for scrutiny and directed the management of the company to hire auditors to immediately audit their accounts for the year 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Officials of the Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority (GPHA) led by the Director-General, Richard Anamoo, were also quizzed on their 2011 audited accounts.
They were questioned about a GH¢1.1million contract awarded to SMV Ltd for the supply of operating equipment in 2003 but the document covering the contract could not be traced by the auditors.
Mr Anamoo explained to the committee that because the headquarters of GPHA moved into a new office, it was difficult to trace the document but now they have been able to retrieve it and were prepared to tender it before the committee.
The GPHA was also found to have cancelled most debts owed the company by its debtors and that infuriated the committee members, who thought those cancellation of debts was a financial loss to the state.
According to officials from the Auditor-General's department, GPHA does not have the mandate as stipulated by Act 654 of the Financial Administration Act which says that if there should be any debt cancellation, the Minister of Finance should have to be informed first and for him to also seek the approval of parliament for such debt cancellation to take place.
The director-general said that those who were indebted to the authority were the Tema Oil Refinery and some fishing companies who were finding it difficult to settle their debts because of the precarious financial situation they found themselves and that the authority did not have any option than to cancel those debts.
The committee members warned the management of the GPHA not to make such a mistake again.
Officials of the National Sports Council and the National Youth Authority led by the Minister, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, also made an appearance at the committee yesterday to answer questions pertaining to the audited accounts of the two state institutions.