Chop-Chop At Tema Shipyard

By Livingstone Pay Charlie

In the name of contracts, some officers of PSC Tema shipyard who have hijacked operations are milking the coffers of the company.

An audit into the company’s activities has uncovered the flagrant abuse of the procurement process and in some cases the inflation of the cost of contracts. The audit which covered December 2008 to January 2009 revealed that fees payable to SBT Resource Associates “are excessive in relation to the services to be provided.”

SBT Resource Associates was awarded a contract worth $285,000.

The details include facilitating PSC Tema Shipyard’s expression of interest as an operator of Takoradi Port Shipyard for a fee of $150,000.

Not only did a check on the company’s ability to execute the contract questionable, the report noted that the submission of a report for a free zones status “could be submitted by managers of PSC Tema shipyard at a minimal cost rather than by a consultant.”

Due diligence done on SBT Reource Associates revealed that the company was registered to deal in Agriculture Technology, agricultural machinery, distribution of agricultural equipment and debt collection.

Merchant Naval Ratings Associate Co. Ltd, which was registered to undertake ship engine and bilges maintainance was awarded a contract to do landscape designing of the Tema Shipyard at a fee of GH¢3,250.00 per month.

“As at 28/2/09, a total of GH¢11,800.00 had been paid to the service provider. “No report of actual work done was seen and apart from weeding the compound and cleaning offices, no visible landscaping work was done to merit such payment. “The Service provider should have been paid GH¢8,125.00 representing two and half months done up to 28/02/09,” the report stated.

On the part of Jioe Engineering Complex which was contracted to maintain all equipment in Docks I and II, no report was submitted on work done but the company was paid a total of GH¢23,000.00 as at 28th February, 2009.

The same was the case of Keta Shipping Service, which was contracted “to provide professional, skilled and unskilled labour upon request of PSC Tema Shipyard.” Within two months, a whopping sum of GH¢53,500.00 had been paid to the company under conditions the audit report describes as “suspicious.”

For all the contracts, only one tender was considered instead of three. It has also been established that some of the agreements did not provide for a period of notice to be given by any of the parties before termination.

Workers at PSC Tema Shpyard are concerned that the head of procurement, who is supposed to handle all tenders, was completely ignored from the transactions. PSC Tema Shpyard was divested in 1997 to some Malaysians, relegating the Governemnt of Ghana to a minority shareholder position. The internal Audit Unit of the Company was in 2007 debarred from pre-auditing payment vouchers which would have ensured that transactions to be paid for were valid in all aspects.

So far, seven quarterly reports submitted in 2007 and 2008 were all not taken seriously.

Chief of Efficiency, Control and Quality of PSC Tema Shipyard Mr A.K.B. Paintsil states in his report that the reports already submitted were replete with cases of flagrant violations of procedures by managers.