Ghana@50 Commission of Inquiry adjourns sitting

Accra, Sept. 24, GNA - The Ghana@50 Commission on Thursday adjourned to October 5, 2009 their public sittings to enable legal representatives at the Commission to attend to the Bar Week that comes off next week.

The Chairman Mr Justice Isaac Duose, who announced this, said: "We are breaking for one week for lawyers to attend our annual Bar Week. I will also attend the Judicial Conference. I must know what is happening in my backyard."

Earlier, Mr Thomas Swaniker, Managing Director of Svani Limited, the Automobile Dealership that supplied Mercedes Benz S Class to the Ghana@50 Secretariat for use for the Jubilee Celebration and the AU Conference, told the Commission that he was embarrassed by an Audit Service report that his company owed government.

He explained that he supplied 50 of the luxury vehicles to the Secretariat and after the Jubilee celebration and the AU conference in 2007, he bought back 45 of the vehicles, based on an advertisement in the dailies that the Secretariat was offering the automobiles for sale. Mr. Swaniker told the Commission that he paid for the vehicles and did not hold any liability to government in respect of that transaction but an Audit Service report that was posted on the internet suggested that he was indebted to government, thus negating every effort by his company to register and sell six of the 45 cars.

"My Lord, I do not owe the Secretariat and they don't owe me either. But I implore you to ask the Audit Service to retract that report from the media because even the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority is refusing to register these vehicles because they think it is government property".

Mr. Akoto Ampaw, Counsel for the Chief Executive Officer of the defunct Secretariat, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, agreed that Svani Limited was not indebted to the Secretariat.

Justice Duose thus encouraged Mr Swaniker to sell his vehicles since he was not indebted to government, adding, "Government has not placed any embargo on the sale of the cars which you bought back." "In any case, anyone who says that the Commission has blocked the sale of these cars stands in contempt of this Commission," he told Swaniker.

Mr. Swaniker paid two instalments of GH¢1,881,562 each for the 45 vehicles that were valued at 66,900 Euros each.

He supplied the vehicles initially to the Secretariat at the same price at which he bought them back. Mr Francis Ekow Parker, Director of Heals B Construction Limited, the company that supplied plastic drinking anniversary cups for the Jubilee celebration, demanded that the Secretariat paid them an amount of GH¢147,465 to service interest charges on a loan the company took to import the items due to late payout of the agreed contract sum by the Secretariat.

He told the Commission that the company was indebted to the National Investment Bank (NIB) to that tune because it defaulted in the repayment of facility on schedule because the Secretariat did not honour the terms of the contract it had with it.

Mr. Parker explained that the Secretariat contracted his company to supply 2.5 million plastic drinking cups for the Jubilee celebration at a total contract sum of GH¢1,132,942 at a unit price of 40 GH Pesewas. He said as per the bidding terms of the contract the Secretariat was to give his company 40 per cent of the total contract sum, 40 per cent on delivery and the remaining 20 per cent 28 days after delivery. But, according to him, after he received his contract letter, the Secretariat stated that he should supply the goods and receive 70 per cent of the contract sum on delivery and the balance in 28 days after delivery, which compelled him to acquire a loan from the NIB to import the items.

Mr Parker said the cups were supplied on February 31, 2007 but the secretariat reneged on the agreement by paying the first instalment of the contract sum August 14, 2007, four-and-a-half clear months from the agreed time.

He said a second instalment of GH¢150,778.70 was paid January 1, 2008, seven clear months after delivery, a third instalment of GH¢200,000 paid on March 31, 2008 and that last instalment of GH¢132,163.30 paid on November 20, 2008. The company thus incurred the interest he was demanding from the Secretariat.

He said the company's indebtedness to the NIB was as a result of the piecemeal approach adopted by the Secretariat in the payment of their money, and appealed to the Committee to "order" the Secretariat to settle that problem with the bank. When the Commission asked Mr Parker whether he had been paid the total contract sum agreed, he said the instalments added up to the full amount.

He said when his company informed the Secretariat that it secured a loan for the contract when the 28 mandatory days for payment elapsed, the Secretariat through a correspondence accepted to take responsibility for all charges related to the transaction.

But Mr. Parker could not convince the Commiss ion and the Secretariat's counsel because he could not produce certain documents from the bank to prove that he owed the amount he was demanding as a result of defaulting in the repayment terms of the loan. Thus the Commission Chairman, Justice Duose, asked him to revise his memoranda because "It is not a satisfactory representation of the whole contract".

Mr. Parker was not also able to show documented evidence that the goods were delivered in the right quantities to the beneficiaries, as he claimed that Ghana Post and EMS were mandated to do the distribution. He was thus asked to produce evidence that the goods were properly distributed to the intended recipients. Mr. Akoto Ampaw said Mr Parker's claim for interest on the contract sum should be properly tabulated "but beyond that the Secretariat has no problem with their claim".