Jumah, Assembly Members At Each Other's Throat

The members of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) and their Chief Executive, Hon. Maxwell Kofi Jumah are again at each other's throat over several allegations leveled against the Chief Executive by the assembly members.

Jumah is said to have, among others, been involved in the diversion of HIPC fund, pocketing part of concessionary fees accrued from the Kejetia lorry park, closing of all sub-metropolitan assemblies in the city and banning the Presiding Member of the KMA from calling sessional assembly meetings.

But when The Chronicle contacted the KMA boss, the Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mr. Kwame Frimpong and the Metropolitan Engineer, Mr. Ampomah Mensah described the allegations as bogus and unfounded. The Metro Engineer said it would be better for the members to meet them for explanations of things than resorting to press for publications.

The leader of the members, Hon Kofi Senyah, who is also the Manhyia sub-metro chairman, indicated that an effort to get the assembly to sit and discuss issues impeding the smooth operations of the assembly yielded no results, as the administrators of the KMA were not prepared to meet them.

Speaking to The Chronicle in an interview in Kumasi, Mr. Senyah revealed that when the Kejetia Lorry park was completed, the assembly invited applications to bid for the management of the park.

According to him, Freko FD Ltd finally won the contract to the man the lorry park and it was initially agreed that the company should pay ?105.7 million monthly to the KMA, beginning from June 2002, under probation for one year.

"To our surprise, Freko FD Lt only paid the ?105.7 million for June, July and August".

From this point, as revealed by Mr. Senyah, the figure declined to ?68.7 million without any explanation to the members.

The decline of the concessionary, according to Hon. Senyah, is unjustifiable, as a number of facilities like urinals and toilets were constructed at the park.

He said they, as assembly, were expecting that the concessionary fee would have increased, following the provision of the facilities.

He alleged that the Metro Chief Executive and his chronies had met to deduct almost half of the money for their selfish interest.

Mr. Senyah told The Chronicle that, during the era of Nana Kwasi Agyemang, some stores were constructed at the railway lines opposite the Kumasi central market, under the World Bank sponsorship to cater for the displaced railway store owners, but this project received a lot of protection from hired demonstrators of Kofi Jumah, immediately he took office.

He revealed that when the contractor working on the project, Arab Contractors was living, they handed over some materials being used for the project to the KMA.

He continued that when the dust had finally settled, Hon Kofi Jumah directed KMA engineers to access the project to find out if they could build additional stores on top.

The engineers, according to their leader, realized that they could build about 114 stores on top of the already 228 stores.

The project, as revealed by Hon Senyah, was laid before the members of the assembly and it suggested that HIPC fund of ? 3.1 billion be used for it, but this was not agreed upon, because HIPC funds were not for projects of such nature. But, finally, Hon. Kofi Jumah got the assembly to approve the project.

He said when the project was completed, the KMA boss decided to rent the stores to some people for ?75 million.

He also allocated the stores to all the constituency chairmen of the NPP in the Kumasi metropolis, the Konongo and Kumawu constituency chairmen at ?12million.

Following this, the assembly members decided to form an eleven-member allocation committee, including the four sub-metro chairmen, but Hon. Kofi Jumah swore not to let the committee function.

The KMA boss, according to Hon. Senyah, directed the Metro coordinating Director not to write any letter to the committee members towards the inauguration of it.

Following the inclusion of the sub-metro chairmen, Hon Jumah decided to close down the sub-metros, he told The Chronicle.

Hon Senyah revealed that, last year, the assembly had only one sessional meeting, because Mr. Jumah said he could not work with the ideas of the assembly members.

When the paper contacted the KMA, the Metro engineer denied that the stores were constructed under HIPC fund.

He asserted that the HIPC fund had auditors that audited the funds and there was no way the fund could be diverted.

On the concessionary fee, the PRO, Kwame Frimpong explained that the reduction resulted from the reduction of rates against vehicles operating at the park.

He said for instance, initially, Urvan buses and other vehicles were charged ? 5000 and taxis, ? 3000 for taxis.

Later, the assembly members, in a press conference, decided to reduce the rates to ?3,500 and ?2,000 respectively, hence the reduction in the concessionary paid to the KMA by the managers, Freko FD Ltd.

On the closure of the sub-metros, Mr. Kwame Frimpong explained that the sub-metros were functioning, but it was the chairmen who had ceased to play their role, because of the new demarcation yet to be made, following the creation of six additional sub-metros to the existing four.