Ghana@50 Commission of Inquiry adjourns sitting
Accra, Sept. 24, Ghanadot/GNA
- The Ghana@50 Commission on Thursday adjourned to October
5, 2009 their public sittings to enable legal
representatives at the Commission to attend to the Bar Week
that comes off next week.
The Chairman Mr Justice Isaac Duose, who announced this,
said: “We are breaking for one week for lawyers to attend
our annual Bar Week. I will also attend the Judicial
Conference. I must know what is happening in my backyard.”
Earlier, Mr Thomas Swaniker, Managing Director of Svani
Limited, the Automobile Dealership that supplied Mercedes
Benz S Class to the Ghana@50 Secretariat for use for the
Jubilee Celebration and the AU Conference, told the
Commission that he was embarrassed by an Audit Service
report that his company owed government.
He explained that he supplied 50 of the luxury vehicles to
the Secretariat and after the Jubilee celebration and the AU
conference in 2007, he bought back 45 of the vehicles, based
on an advertisement in the dailies that the Secretariat was
offering the automobiles for sale.
Mr. Swaniker told the Commission that he paid for the
vehicles and did not hold any liability to government in
respect of that transaction but an Audit Service report that
was posted on the internet suggested that he was indebted to
government, thus negating every effort by his company to
register and sell six of the 45 cars.
“My Lord, I do not owe the Secretariat and they don’t owe me
either. But I implore you to ask the Audit Service to
retract that report from the media because even the Driver
and Vehicle Licensing Authority is refusing to register
these vehicles because they think it is government
property”.
Mr. Akoto Ampaw, Counsel for the Chief Executive Officer of
the defunct Secretariat, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, agreed
that Svani Limited was not indebted to the Secretariat.
Justice Duose thus encouraged Mr Swaniker to sell his
vehicles since he was not indebted to government, adding,
“Government has not placed any embargo on the sale of the
cars which you bought back.”
“In any case, anyone who says that the Commission has
blocked the sale of these cars stands in contempt of this
Commission,” he told Swaniker.
Mr. Swaniker paid two instalments of GH¢1,881,562 each for
the 45 vehicles that were valued at 66,900 Euros each.
He supplied the vehicles initially to the Secretariat at the
same price at which he bought them back.
Mr Francis Ekow Parker, Director of Heals B Construction
Limited, the company that supplied plastic drinking
anniversary cups for the Jubilee celebration, demanded that
the Secretariat paid them an amount of GH¢147,465 to service
interest charges on a loan the company took to import the
items due to late payout of the agreed contract sum by the
Secretariat.
He told the Commission that the company was indebted to the
National Investment Bank (NIB) to that tune because it
defaulted in the repayment of facility on schedule because
the Secretariat did not honour the terms of the contract it
had with it.
Mr. Parker explained that the Secretariat contracted his
company to supply 2.5 million plastic drinking cups for the
Jubilee celebration at a total contract sum of GH¢1,132,942
at a unit price of 40 GH Pesewas.
He said as per the bidding terms of the contract the
Secretariat was to give his company 40 per cent of the total
contract sum, 40 per cent on delivery and the remaining 20
per cent 28 days after delivery.
But, according to him, after he received his contract
letter, the Secretariat stated that he should supply the
goods and receive 70 per cent of the contract sum on
delivery and the balance in 28 days after delivery, which
compelled him to acquire a loan from the NIB to import the
items.
Mr Parker said the cups were supplied on February 31, 2007
but the secretariat reneged on the agreement by paying the
first installment of the contract sum August 14, 2007,
four-and-a-half clear months from the agreed time.
He said a second instalment of GH¢150,778.70 was paid
January 1, 2008, seven clear months after delivery, a third
instalment of GH¢200,000 paid on March 31, 2008 and that
last instalment of GH¢132,163.30 paid on November 20, 2008.
The company thus incurred the interest he was demanding from
the Secretariat.
He said the company’s indebtedness to the NIB was as a
result of the piecemeal approach adopted by the Secretariat
in the payment of their money, and appealed to the Committee
to “order” the Secretariat to settle that problem with the
bank.
When the Commission asked Mr Parker whether he had been paid
the total contract sum agreed, he said the installments
added up to the full amount.
He said when his company informed the Secretariat that it
secured a loan for the contract when the 28 mandatory days
for payment elapsed, the Secretariat through a
correspondence accepted to take responsibility for all
charges related to the transaction.
But Mr. Parker could not convince the Commission and the
Secretariat’s counsel because he could not produce certain
documents from the bank to prove that he owed the amount he
was demanding as a result of defaulting in the repayment
terms of the loan.
Thus the Commission Chairman, Justice Duose, asked him to
revise his memoranda because “It is not a satisfactory
representation of the whole contract”.
Mr. Parker was not also able to show documented evidence
that the goods were delivered in the right quantities to the
beneficiaries, as he claimed that Ghana Post and EMS were
mandated to do the distribution.
He was thus asked to produce evidence that the goods were
properly distributed to the intended recipients.
Mr. Akoto Ampaw said Mr Parker’s claim for interest on the
contract sum should be properly tabulated “but beyond that
the Secretariat has no problem with their claim”.
GNA
