Despite countless denial about the diversion of materials and labour for the construction of a private house for the live-in Ghanaian girl friend of Mr. Tonnis Sierevogel, the leader of Mott-McDonald, consultant for the Kpong Irrigation Project (KIP), Sierevogel is still depending on the labour force of KIP for the execution of his girlfriend's project.
Chronicle's information was further given credence when our undercover team visited the site of the project at Kpong in the Eastern Region Monday and met staff of KIP, who were dispatched to the project site by Tonnis to work for him.
Before this unannounced visit to Kpong this past Monday, Tonnis and his girlfriend Veronica Ahulu and some top men at Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) had tried to discredit Chronicle's publication about some questionable deals within GIDA/KIP.
When Chronicle got to the scene Monday, we spotted at least five workers from KIP who have been assigned to work on the fencewall of the building.
Some of the workers who later confided in Chronicle revealed that for the past week, Tonnis has been using them to construct private projects.
They have been hijacked from the Ghanaian taxpayer to work for Oboroni and his 'wife'.
Chronicle can also report that the Eastern Regional Police Crime Officer had been alerted about the misuse of public resources by the consultant.
Chronicle gathered that a concerned resident who could no longer bear the continuous abuse of office by Tonnis last Monday walked to the Kpong Police station and lodged a complaint.
He had wanted the police to arrest the workers to serve as a deterrent, but the police refused to act on his complaint.
About three years ago, Tonnis purchased plots of land at Kpong to build a house for his Ghanaian girlfriend, who is also clerk working under him at KIP.
After purchasing the plots, the perception was that the consultant was going to dip his hands into his huge ?60 million salary a month for the construction of the project.
Unknowingly, Tonnis had a different agenda and this came to light when he started the building project and started dragging KIP workers to work on his private project.
He gave indication that the building project was part of the Africa Development Bank (ADB) loan agreement with the government.
Interestingly, when Chronicle first published the diversion of the public labour for his personal private work, Tonnis and his girl friend denied using the workers for their private project.
They rather claimed that the workers were only sent to work on the project once and that they paid for their service.
Chronicle's investigations indicates that not only did they use the labour of KIP, but almost every material for the construction came from KIP.
Chronicle further gathered that even some of the cement and iron rod used for the project belonged to KIP.
Interestingly, after Chronicle's publication about the diversion of the material in July,Tonnis later sent a copy of one day working payment voucher to Chronicle.
This suggested that he only engaged the workers in a day's labour.
It also emerged after weeks of this paper's investigations that a KIP carpenter was assigned to make both the door and window flames for the project.
Since most of the KIP staff who were engaged by Tonnis to work on his private project is still alive it is up to the government or the Ministry of Agriculture to set up an independent probe into some of these serious allegations, we ca not closed our eyes to allow such scandal to be sweep under the carpet", observed a farmer.
