Auditor General clears former Minister of Defence

Accra, Nov. 3, GNA - The Auditor General has absolved the former Minister of Defence, Lieutenant Colonel E.K.T. Donkor (rtd) of any wrong doing in the purchase of vehicles and tuna for the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

A Report of the Auditor-General made available to the Ghana News Agency on Monday said, among other things: "Our findings do not support the view, and we have no reason to believe that the purchase of the vehicles and canned fish resulted in economic or financial loss to the state."

The Report said: Based on our findings and conclusions reached, we wish to recommend that any further investigations into the purchase of Bedford and Land Rover trucks and caned fish from Myroc Food Processing Company Limited, a local company, in 2000 for GAF be discontinued and put to rest."

The Auditor-General had been requested to conduct investigations into the purchase of trucks from the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom and mackerel in pepper sauce and tuna solid in pure vegetable oil from a local company for the GAF.

In 2000 the Ministry of Defence imported 20 Bedford and 15 Land Rover Trucks aged between 18 and 20 years at a total cost of 401,500 pounds sterling.

The vehicles arrived in early 2001 at the Port of Tema and the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) found the vehicles to be over-aged, and that the importation, therefore, contravened Act 552 of 1998.

CEPS consequently seized the vehicles and forfeited them to the Government and issued Notice of Seizure to the GAF but the Ministry of Finance intervened and the vehicles were released to GAF.

In January 2001 the Chief of Defence Staff set up a Board of Officers to examine the procurement of the vehicles. The Board was to establish, among other things, the background to the procurement procedure and other matters relevant to the work of the Board.

The Board's opinion was that, Lt. Col. Donkoh took advantage of the December 2000 Elections and ignored GAF procurement procedures and single-handedly ordered the over-aged vehicles and that there was no transparency in the transactions and, therefore, created suspicion and doubts.

It also said it would be very expensive and uneconomical to maintain the vehicles, and, therefore, recommended that the vehicles should be rejected and Lt. Col. Donkoh made to refund the full cost of the vehicles to GAF.

In November 2000, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) found it expedient to build adequate stocks of dry food items to mitigate any feeding problems that GAF might face in the run-up to the December 7 2000 Elections.

MOD ordered canned fish at a total cost of 1.308 billion cedis for GAF from a Tema based food-processing company, Myroc Food Processing Company Limited.

It was alleged that the transaction was not transparent and that it did not follow GAF procurement procedures and that Lt. Col. Donkoh should provide explanations for the issues raised.

Another Board of Enquiry was set up to investigate the issues raised in connection with the order of the canned fish from Myroc. The Board recommended that GAF should negotiate with Myroc and get the rest of the order delivered. That, in view of the controversies surrounding the transaction with Myroc, GAF should review further business transactions with the company.

The two transactions were referred to the Auditor-General to investigate and to establish whether administrative procedures followed in the two transactions were appropriate and in line with the laid down regulations; and whether there was economic or financial loss to the State.

The report said: "We thoroughly conducted investigations into both the procurement of the vehicles and the canned fish and our findings were that:

"There was a common view that the bulk purchase of the canned fish, with little or no regard for the level of stocks of other food items was not prudent. However, at the time of our investigation the entire canned fish had been delivered to GAF and utilised. "There was the general perception that there was a possible breach of administrative procedures. We found this to exist.

"We did not find from any of the documents, nor was any suggestion made to us, that the prices were inflated with resultant kickbacks. "The decision to procure the vehicles was taken by the National Security Council for the Government of the day.

"The vehicles procurement processes involved the entire Government administrative machinery, namely, Minister of National Security, Minister of Defence, Chief Director/MOD and Ghana High Commission in London.

"The cost of the freight in respect of the vehicles was too high. Renegotiation would have been prudent particularly when it became obvious that the vehicles could not be delivered in Ghana before the December 2000 Elections.

"On the orders of the Ghana Government, 16 of the Bedford trucks and eight of the Land Rovers were given on "wet lease" for the UN Peacekeeping Operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo for use by the Ghanaian troops.

"Records showed that the vehicles were extensively examined and tested under UN regulations before they were sent in two batches on 15 October and 20 October 2001.

"UN would reimburse Government of Ghana for the use of the vehicles in DR Congo at the rate of 1,586.19 dollars per month for each Bedford Truck and 1,328.65 dollars per month for each Land Rover.

"The vehicles are still on lease in DR Congo as confirmed by MOD on 21 July 2003.

"It was confirmed by the Controller and Accountant-General that reimbursement from the "wet lease" are paid to the Treasury Officer, New York Mission.

Auditor-General, therefore, concluded: " We noted that there were breaches of administrative procedures by all persons connected with the procurement of the vehicles and the canned fish.

"However, we do not find these breaches sufficient grounds for any criminal sanctions.

"We noted that the decision to purchase the vehicles and pay for them from the Special UNIFIL Account in New York was endorsed by the former President (Flt Lt. J.J. Rawlings) the then Commander-in-Chief of the GAF. Therefore, the Ministers and other officials could not be sanctioned, especially where no criminal transactions were found. "Our findings do not support the allegation that the former Minister of Defence, Lt. Col. E.K.T. Donkoh, single-handedly authorised the purchase of the military vehicles.

The Report said; the fact that the "wet lease" of the vehicles is providing substantial earnings to the GAF seriously undermines the credibility of the perception that the acquisition of the vehicles has caused economic or financial loss to the State.