... owes contractors and can't pay
The Heritage can authoritatively report that many contractors who performed various jobs for the Ghana@50 Secretariat may have to find other means of settling the numerous debts they owe their bankers than get paid for their contracts.
The reason is that there is hardly a single pessewa remaining in the secretariat's coffers to be used to defray such arguably legitimate debts.
The Heritage is in fact convinced that Ghana @50 owes so many billions of cedis that Government might have to directly step in to save wailing contractors from bankruptcy.
So is the difficult strait the contractors face that those who want to avoid continued embarrassment and harassment by their creditors have resorted to changing their mobile phone numbers or relocating at innocuous parts of town. Our sources confirm that a worse source of harassment to these unpaid contractors are tough talking menial workers they employed to work but have failed to secure money to pay.
The Heritsge investigations have further uncovered how, at midnights, some of the unpaid labourers take advantage of the prevailing free night calls provided by the cellular phone service providers to spew death threats and unpalatable text messages to their ex-employers.
Avid readers would recall that the Ghana@50 Secretariat was given an initial amount of $20million for the organisation of the country's Golden Jubilee that was planned to span a period of one year. The project included construction of jubilee schools, parks, tree planting and souvenirs jams.
The president's chief of staff, Kwadwo Mpiani, later went to Parliament to demand additional funding of $l5m to support the budget of the secretariat. This attracted the wrath of the opposition that launched an acidic attack on Government in heated parliamentary debates but the Minority eventually caved in and succumbed to pressure from the Majority.
A visit to the offices of the secretariat Tuesday depicted an abandoned place with no staff of the former busy offices at post, even though activities earmarked for the celebration are still supposed to be in progress, never mind Ghanaians are not being told what is going on. The Heritage investigations again revealed that, as far back as July this year, the appointments of some of the workers were terminated and, therefore, they refused to make comment when this newspaper contacted them.
The fear of the contractors, however, is that at the end of just next month the activities of the secretariat will of¬ficially come to an end and there will be nobody to talk to.
On July 18, this year The Heritage intercepted a letter written and signed by Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobbey, the secretariat's CEO, when the contractors had wanted to go on demonstration, pleading with them to exercise restraint as he was doing everything possible to have their monies paid to them. But four months after the assurance, they are yet to receive their money.
What has heightened the fears of the contractors is Tuesday's statement by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, on the Accra-based Hot FM morning news to the effect that Government cannot spend beyond its budget and advised all other government institutions to spend within their limits.
He said every sector of the Government is given seed money and must not work over and above it. He said, if that is not done, the implication is what is actually happening at the Ghana@50 Secretariat.
He, however, did not state whether the ministry would pay the monies to the contractors. By implication the Finance Minister meant that there is no pesewa in the coffers of the secretariat.
Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament for Atwima-Mponua Tuesday called on Parliament to investigate how much the NDC government spent on the 40th anniversary celebration. This, he said, was necessary because posterity would judge them if the money was not made known to the public.
They were also to investigate how the award of the cloth contracts was given to the 31st December Women's Movement, the disputed women's wing of the then government.
In a related development, The Heritage's investigations have also unearthed deductions made at source from funds meant for the District Assemblies from their share of the District Assemblies' Common Fund to defray costs of the Jubilee caps meant for school children.
It is not clear why the DAs are tasked to pay for the caps when in actual fact, it was made clear to the whole country that the seed money of $20m plus the additional money of $15 given to the Ghana@50 Secretariat would cater for all expenses related to the anniversary celebrations.
