CHRAJ Probes National Lottery Boss Over Multiple Procurement Violations

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), is fast moving in on the Acting Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), for his alleged involvement in series of high-profile blunders, including, insider dealings, multiple violation of procurement processes, and unfair treatment.

Fordia Rebeeca Amenya, at large in NLA

Osei Ameyaw is under investigations following a petition by NLA'S former Procurement Manager, Benony Bleppony (published), that CHRAJ probes his former boss for circumventing the procurement processes at the nation's lottery regulator, for his benefit.

Details of the petition, dated June 19, this year, are sketchy but NewsDay scouts at NLA revealed that the voluminous documents contained chapter-and verse evidence of how Osei Ameyaw allegedly impressed on his former Procurement Manager to circumvent the procumbent processes, failure of which he called in the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) to pick him up on trump-up charges.

The story goes that after 'Corruption Watch' - a project led by CDD-Ghana in collaboration with ACILA, Joy FM Super Morning Show, Ghana Integrity Initiative and Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition exposé that five contracts were allegedly taken from two companies - Daises and Danboag - which had won bids and given to Ram's Kitchen on the instruction of Mr Osei-Ameyaw.

More was that the NLA reportedly paid Ram's Kitchen GHS17, 527 more than it would have paid to the two companies which won the contracts. Those five contracts, based on the evaluated bids of those two companies, were worth GHS157, 605. But NLA paid GHS175, 132 to Ram's Kitchen to execute those same contracts.

Insiders say soon after the revelation, on Thursday, March 15, 2018, the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, 69, summoned Osei Ameyaw to respond to the allegations.

The NLA boss, this paper gathered, corroborated by Benony Bleppony's response to a query by the Acting Human Resource Manager that he divulged confidential report to the media, also summoned the former procurement manager to also go to the Flagstaff House with Procurement File, which Bennony claimed had been altered by one Mr Amissah.

At the office of the Chief of Staff, according to Bleppony, out of fear, because his boss, Osei Ameyaw was present, he only fielded questions from Frema Osei-Opare with the content of the altered documents.

“On Sunday, March 18, 2018, the Director General (Hon. Kofi Osei Ameyaw) called me on his phone to meet him and the Board Chairman at the NLA Head Office. When I got to the office I realised he was there alone without the Board Chairman. He then instructed me to fix Hofram Enterprise name into the 2014 to 2016 Suppliers list,” Bleppony stated in his response to the query dated 18 May, 2018.

Benony Bleppony continued: “I told him I could not do what he was asking me to do because it was wrong and I had discussed what went on at the office of the Chief of Staff with my parents and told them the truth about the whole issue and the fact that I felt very uncomfortable about what I had done, and that my parents in turn told me that I should not involve myself in these wrong acts and that I should go to tell the truth and stop supporting him(Osei Ameyaw) in the wrong doing. I also informed him that my parents had told me that they would not want me to soil the family name and so I should tell the truth”

It was these explanation Bleppony gave as the reason he could not engage in any wrong doing that became his Gethsemane, with Osei Ameyaw allegedly threatening to transfer him to Hohoe just by the stroke of his pen, interspersing it with questions as “do you know why the President brought me to NLA to do?

The unfair treatment, coupled with the allegations that the former Asuogyaman MP leaked the content of what happened at the office of the Chief of Staff to the media, is what had led the former Procurement manager petitioning CHRAJ to be on the tail to the Acting NLA boss.

Meanwhile, attempts reach Osei Ameyaw for response to the story a snag as calls to his phones were not answered or returned. Our sources say he might have travelled out of the country.