Corruption Charges At Sefwi-Wiawso

The district Chief Executive (DCE) for Sefwi Wiawso, Mr. Kofi Ahenkorah, who has been accused by his former party chairman of getting involved in a timber deal, has found himself in yet another trouble.

This time he has been accused by his own district assembly of flouting laid- down procedures as spelt in the Standing Orders and the Local Government Act by awarding contracts mostly to his favourite party sympathisers without recourse to the district tender board, which has constitutional mandate to carry on such an exercise.

An in-depth investigation conducted by our ubiquitous Chronicle at Wiawso, the district capital, revealed that ever since Mr. Kofi Ahenkorah assumed duty as DCE for the area, he was never passed any contract through the tender board.

What appears to have broken the camel's back is the recent contract he allegedly awarded to the NPP Sefwi Wiawso constituency chairman, one David Damptey, to renovate the nurses' quarters attached to the district hospital at the cost of ?8 million.

This contract, according to Chronicle sources, did not go through the tender process.

Fed up with Mr. Ahenkorah's flouting of due procedures of the law, one third of the entire assembly passed a resolution for the removal of Ahenkorah. Interestingly, five out of the eighteen members who passed the resolution were government appointees.

Chronicle investigations revealed that the government appointees took the decision after realising that Ahenkorah's strange decisions were killing the party in the district dominated by the opposition NDC.

Chronicle's further investigations established that after the assembly members had made their decision known to the Presiding Member (PM), Hon. Herod Cobbina, also instructed the secretary to the assembly as law demands to write to the entire assembly members inviting them to a meeting to determine the resolution.

Chronicle gathered that upon receipt of the PM's instructions, the secretary to the assembly, who is also the District Co-ordinating Director, surprisingly refused to write to the assembly members to invite them to the meeting.

The decision, Chronicle gathered, compelled the MP himself to write the invitation letters to the assembly members inviting them to the meeting on June 26, last month, to consider and pass a vote of no confidence in the DCE.

On realising that the assembly members were bent on removing the DCE, Chronicle gathered that the same NPP constituency chairman, Mr. David Damptey, who was allegedly awarded the ?88 million contract under dispute without going through tender, surprisingly went to the Sefwi Wiawso High Court and succeeded in getting injunction to restrain the assembly members from going ahead with the no confidence vote.

Damptey's grounds for the suit were that the first defendant, Herod Cobbina, who is the PM, fraudulently obtained the consent of the five government appointees to sign the resolution.

The plaintiff further contended that the government appointees, who are members of the ruling NPP party, intend to defect to the opposition NDC and were therefore trying to foment trouble within the NPP.

He therefore prayed the court for an order declaring the resolution passed as null and void.

He also prayed the court for a perpetual injunction to restrain the first defendant, who is the PM, and the second defendant, which is the district assembly, from passing the vote of no confidence.

The relief was granted.

Chronicle gathered that after the suit had been filed and the subsequent injunction granted, the PM also filed a counter suit against the plaintiff and also prayed the court to dismiss the statement of claim by the plaintiff on the grounds that his application was mischievous, premature and a blatant abuse of the court process.

The PM contended in his suit that he exercised his powers under the Standing Orders of the district assembly and the Local Government Act 1993, Act 462, to convene the meeting to determine the earlier resolution passed by one third of the total number of the assembly.

He contended further that the NPP constituency chairman's writ of summons did not amount to a breach of the rules as contained in the Standing Orders or law in giving notice for the convening of the meeting.

"That since the writ does not allege any breach on my part in issuing out notices of the meeting, the plaintiff writ of summons and the accompanying statement of claim do not disclose any cause of action against me," he stated in his affidavit in support of the motion.

Cobbina therefore contended that the court has no jurisdiction to entertain the present action in law.

The legal battle continues but some of the NPP supporters who spoke to the Chronicle at Sefwi Wiawso last Friday believed that the writ filed by their party chairman was only meant to play for time since the constitutional term of office of the assembly members would come to an end this month ending.

Some of those who signed the disputed resolution, on their part, told the Chronicle that they had also seen the legal trick.

Despite the ending of their constitutional term of office they would still make sure that the DCE was removed, otherwise they would also go to court to restrain the Electoral Commission from going ahead with the election in the Sefwi Wiawso district.

"Let me tell you, we are all NPP supporters but that does not mean that we should sit down unconcerned when the DCE is mismanaging our district," one of the NPP supporters told Chronicle.

When Ahenkorah, the DCE, was contacted to react to the allegations which had led to the legal battle, he said most of the contracts he is being accused of awarding without recourse to the tender process are being sponsored by the state, and not the district assembly.

In the case of the nurses' quarters, he said it was awarded on what he described as a selective tendering which did not require the consent of the tender board.

He said it was Hon. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, to the Local Government Minister who after inspecting the building instructed him to do something about it hence the selective tendering he resolved to.

Alhaji Ishaq Asuru, the District Co-ordinating Director on his part told Chronicle that he refused to write letters to the assembly members to summon them to the emergency meeting because the PM failed to disclose to him the agenda for the meeting.