Eoco Vows To Pursue Awal

A highly placed source within the Economic and Organized Crime Unit, formerly Serious Fraud Office (SFO), has hinted The Enquirer that the resignation of the Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, would not scuttle the investigation the unit was doing concerning his activities while he was the MD.

“Once the unit has initiated investigations the resignation will never let us stop but rather the unit will continue to do its work as expected,” the source said.

The flawless and reliable source, who was answering queries from The Enquirer on whether the unit would continue with investigations on Mr. Awal or not, said that preliminary work had already been done.

According to the source, the scope of work and other related issues have all been stated and that Mr. Awal has been invited on some occasions to answer certain pertinent questions.

Mr. Awal last Friday, October 29, tendered his resignation letter to the National Media Commission (NMC), the appointing authority of managing directors for state-owned media organizations.

The Enquirer gathered that the embattled MD stated in the letter that he was taking up challenges elsewhere.

But on the flipside, the sources told The Enquirer that Mr. Awal decided to jump the boat, as a result of investigations by some state institutions into alleged malfeasance and abuse of office.

Apart from that, the sources said that Mr. Awal might have been found to have done something wrong, as the Board of Directors of the company recently investigated him at the instance of the Office of the Chief of Staff over certain allegations.

Mr. Awal was appointed in the early part of 2007 and was supposed to be on a six-year contract.

Recently, a group of workers, calling themselves ‘Patriotic Staff of Graphic,’ went after Mr. Awal, who was recently adjudged by the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) as the Marketing Man of Year, claiming he does not deserve the award.

Cataloguing what was happening within the company, the group, in the petition, said that Mr. Awal, who claims to be a professional marketer, had not brought any strategies to grow the business.

“Our circulation levels have fallen drastically, trade debtors’ position has doubled and our cash flow position is bad leading to an increase in the bank overdraft and delays in payment of staff’s monthly salaries,” they said.

The petitioners said that Graphic Communications Group Limited is still in business because of the increase in the cover prices of its newspapers.

“He has cut down drastically on essential costs, such as training, medicals, spare parts for the press and staff allocation to fuel,” they said.

According to them, in 2008, the company paid a dividend of GH¢800,000.00 to government but the figure dropped to GH¢600,000.00 and went down further to GH¢40,000.00 in 2009, adding that that is an indication that all was not well with Graphic financially under the leadership of Mr. Awal.

They said that the most important reason why they are raising the issue with the award is that it is public knowledge that Mr. Awal is being investigated both by the Board of the company and the Serious Fraud Office, now Economic and Organized Crime Unit.

The petitioners said that in 2007, Mr. Awal perpetrated fraud on the National Media Commission (NMC), in the signing of his employment contract, with the connivance of some members of the previous Board, resulting in his current huge net salary per month, excluding other huge allowances, which the company struggles to pay.

“In 2008, he spent a whopping 10,000.00 Pounds Sterling on a frivolous two weeks’ holiday or vacation in London without the approval of the Board. Again, in 2008, he spent $18,000.00 on a useless three-day seminar at Harvard in the United States of America (USA) without the consent and approval by the Board,” they said.

According to the petitioners, in 2008, Mr. Awal sold the company’s household properties in the company’s official residence to himself at a pittance of GH¢2,000.00 without the approval of the Board.

“In 2007, the Board illegally approved an End of Service Benefit (ESB) of over GH¢113, 000.00 to Mr. Awal in complete violation of the company’s conditions of service, which allows ESB to be paid to only staff retiring at 60 years.”

“In 2007, he bought his Prado vehicle in excess of about $12,000.00 of what the Board had earlier approved for him without seeking further approval from the Board to spend the extra amount.”

“He is now scheming to buy himself and the executive management new vehicles, each costing at least $35,000.00, in spite of the company’s weak financial position and protest from the rank and file of the staff,” they said.

According to the group, it is clear that Mr. Awal is firmly wallowing in corruption and conflict of interest and should be dealt with by the appropriate authorities.

However, Mr. Awal, when contacted by The Enquirer at that time, said that the issues raised by the petitioners are not new to him at all.

“They started some time back and have gone to recycle the issues just for him to look bad,” he said.

Mr. Awal said that the petition was just an attempt by some people to sabotage his administration for reasons best known to them.

He told The Enquirer that Graphic is one of the few companies that pay dividend to the government.

“The workers just took their bonuses and that one alone should tell you something,” he said.

Mr. Awal said that his management style was to see the staff and the company growing by creating equal opportunities for all.

He said that when the issues cropped up some time back, the newspapers that carried the stories never bothered to contact him, but went ahead to publish things about him.

He wondered why if what the petitioners said were true they “failed to sign their so-called petition.”