Castle queries consultant's pay

The circumstances under which the Ministry of Lands and Forestry under the NDC government spent over $1 million (?7.3 billion), as salaries, on a certain Guy Symes, a Jamaican, as a consultant, has raised further questions about the management of state resources in the (P)NDC era, The Chronicle reports.

The ?7.3 billion comprises salaries paid to Symes for almost ten peculiar years that he was engaged by the Ministry as Policy Adviser. Even at a certain stage, Symes was said to have bagged as much as ?105 million as his monthly take-home pay, Chronicle learnt.

The fat salary of the Jamaican did not go down well with some directors in other ministries, as it was learnt that most of the job was done by poor civil servants for Guy Symes to cash in at the end of the month.

To register their disapproval, some of the workers wrote several times to the former President, J.J. Rawlings, but nothing good came out.

As they continued to register their concern to the office of the former President they finally saw light at the end of the tunnel when on December 11, last year, the secretary to the President was ordered to file a query letter to Dr. Christine Amoako Nuamah, then Minister of Lands and Forestry, to explain why her ministry was spending such huge amounts of money on a so-called consultant, while the same job could have been easily handled by the staff at the ministry.

The fat salaries of the Jamaican at one stage attracted the eagle eyes of the Serious Fraud Officer (SFO) but no investigations were carried out to contain the situation.

In her response to the query from the secretary to the former President dated December 14, 2000, the former minister admitted that indeed her ministry had engaged Symes as the Policy and Institutional Adviser.

"His appointment took effect from August 2, 1999 and terminates on January 31, 2001, and prior to his appointment, he was temporarily engaged from April to July 30, 1999 by the ministry and is placed on monthly salary of US$9,000", Dr Amoako Nuamah replied.

The Chronicle has gathered that President Kufuor's administration demanded an explanation as to how the nation was spending such huge sums on a single person.

It was revealed that it was the promptness of the Kufuor administration that led to the termination of Symes contract when it expired on January 31, this year, since it had become a ritual to renew his contract at the end of every year.

Mrs Tekpetey, Chief Director of the MLF, last week, confirmed to the paper that the government had demanded an explanation, which they have submitted.