C3.5bn Scandal Rocks National Water Company Ltd.

The Ghana Water Company Limited, which was subject of a five-man ministerial probe recently, has been hit by yet another scandal that not only exposes administrative lapses in the helpless company but also confirms management and staff causing the company to bleed financially.

Ironically, Mr. Jonathan Nunoo, the acting Managing Director of the water company who was roped in to the high post by the then Minister of Works and Housing, Hon. Kwamena Bartels, to clear the mess of fraud, is covering up on the sham contract that is causing the GWCL a loss of ?3.5 billion.

Investigations established that a lone ranger in the person of Mr. E. J. A. Fosu who is currently heading the Accra-Tema Metropolitan Area (ATMA) of the water company single-handedly picked a contractor to whom he awarded a contract to lay pipes for the Winneba water project to the tune of ?3.5 billion which is still outstanding.

GWCL management is disputing the contract sum, especially since it was awarded without management's consent and recourse to laid-down procedures and is carefully evaluating work done before endorsing the amount, which would be paid, anyway, since Fosu, who was then acting as head of Planning and Development signed on behalf of the beleaguered company.

Management has consequently removed Mr. Fosu from his position as Chief Manager in charge of Planning and Development at the head office and transferred him to ATMA, where he is now head, after he was queried in relation to the pofessional manner he awarded the contract.

However, Mr. Nunoo, the acting Managing Director, in a recent interview put in a rather surprise defence for Mr. Fosu, and even lied through the teeth that Fosu had not been queried though he has that fact in his own records.

According to Mr. Jonathan Nunoo, the decision to sub-contract the laying of pipes for the Winneba water project outside the initial contract fee of $5.7 million was taken at a site meeting to expedite action on the project, while in actual fact it is on GWCL records that Mr. Fosu appointed a contractor to do the job and Mr. Nunoo upon getting wind of it, wrote to stop the laying of pipes, which was about 80% complete.

The letter was copied to the Minister for Works and Housing, Hon. Yaw Barimah, indicating to him that the laying of pipes had been stopped.

Spaans Babcock BV, a Dutch firm, was contracted to handle the Winneba water project, under which the old treatment plant that serviced the town was to be replaced at a cost of $5.7 million.

Sod cutting to signal commencement of the project took place in 1999 while actual work began in 2000.

The project, it was gathered, was supposed to be completed in early 2002, but that never occurred as scheduled.

Without consulting his superiors, Fosu, then head of Planning and Development, roped in a local contractor to lay pipes for the same project at a cost of ?3.5 billion even though $5.7 million had already been paid to Spaans Babcock for the whole project, including the laying of pipes.

Nunoo wrote to suspend the project when it was 80% complete, while one Fosu was queried for his unprofessional conduct, but whether it was an issue of not washing one's dirty linen in public or one of a cover-up, Nunoo said in a recent interview that Fosu was never queried because he did nothing wrong.

He also intoned in the interview held in the presence of the company's solicitor that Fosu never single-handedly awarded contract for the project, insisting it was a site decision.

So why was the laying of pipes stopped and the letter of stoppage copied to the Minister to that effect if indeed there was nothing wrong with the contract to lay the pipes?

Stay tuned for what goes on at the GWCL guest house in Accra and you will marvel at the loss of state resources by one man who has abandoned his wife in his official residence and makes hay at the guest house.