Mafia Printers Sabotaged US$50 Million Census

Intelligence picked up by The Herald have revealed that the US$50 million 2010 Population and Housing Census and the GH¢35million 2010 District Assembly Election organized by the Ghana Statistical Service and the Electoral Commission respectively failed due to the existence of a mafia within the commercial printing industry, called the Big Six.

With the involvement of some top state officials, the modus operandi of the companies is to circumvent the much- lauded public procurement law, passed by the Kufuor regime, to curb corruption in the country. In the end, while the state officials hugely benefit financially from the printing jobs, government is left very embarrassed as a result of their greed.

Names which have emerged in this grand scheme include Innolink, Fon Limited, Buck Press, Yasako, Art Commercial and sometimes, Check Point, all commercial printing companies scattered in Accra.

They hold meetings where figures are cooked and decisions made as to which of the companies should win the contract and share it amongst the groups to execute. Most often, the Public Procurement Authority, which by the public procurement law, is to give approval before these jobs are executed, is ignored by the state agencies.

In the case of the badly organized GH¢35million 2010 District Assembly Elections, the meetings to decide the prices to quote, according to insiders, several secret meetings were held at the Kaneshie Premises of Fon Limited, said to be owned by one Fred Ntim from Kwawu-Pepeasi in the Eastern Region and linked to an official of the Finance Department of EC.

Insiders in the printing industry, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department, and the Electoral Commission informed The Herald that the companies have strategically positioned themselves with state agencies which do huge volumes of commercial printing.

Deliberate delays are created to avoid any competitive tendering processes during the award of the huge printing jobs hence there are no advertisements in the newspapers as specified by public procurement law, and this enables the printing jobs to be awarded under a cloak of emergency.

Some of these same companies were behind the failed US$50 million 2010 Population and Housing Census which resulted in calls on the government by MP for Assin North, Kennedy Agyapong, for the immediate dismissal of the government statistician, Dr. Grace Bediako, over poor job done on the Population and Housing Census.

The printing of the Census questionnaires and the District Assemblies Election ballot papers were deliberately delayed by Ghana Statistical Service and the Electoral Commission, and in the end the jobs worth several billions of cedis had to be awarded to some of the companies without any competitive tender process.

Both the Census and the Districts Assembly Elections are massively embroiled in controversy with a call for the dismissal of the government statistician, Dr. Grace Bediako to be dismissed while Parliament has voted unanimously for a 20-member committee to investigate the EC for the poorly organized assembly elections.

The MPs feared the situation could mar the purity of 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

The Herald, in September last year, reported that the holding of the 2010 Population and Housing Census was threatened because of huge shortcomings and allegations of under-hand dealings that hit the US$50 million exercise.

Top officials of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) were reported to have deliberately created an artificial shortage in the number of Census Questionnaires made available for the exercise, to create an avenue for their handpicked companies to also print some of the question papers to augment what they had already printed without going through tender.

The Herald learnt that there was a popular call at the Ghana Statistical Service for the 2010 census to be postponed due to ill- preparation, but the Government Statistician who has widely been described as “dull and sluggish,” was said to have bulldozed her way through, to have the census held in the face of huge difficulties.

The vicious ploys used by the officials of the GSS, indeed, resulted in an artificial shortage of the census questionnaire, forcing President Mills to cut short his investment trip to Asia, to boost Ghanaians’ morale in the census exercise.

In fact, so messy was the organization of the census that The Castle, specifically the Chief of Staff, Mr. John Henry Newman, had to personally step in to have the difficulties addressed, to rescue the exercise from near-collapse.

Ghanaians were not told the whole truth about the award of the contract for the printing of the questionnaires. The truth is that the GSS officials initiated the award of the contract very late.

The printer started work only 13 days to the holding of the census.

September 26, 2010, was long announced as the census date. However, tender was opened on August 18, 2010 with the contract awarded on September 7, 2010, but without the final version of the census questionnaire. On September 8, 2010 when the final version of the questionnaire was submitted, the printer had to wait for additional five working days on GSS, to get clearance to commence printing but with an order to do so within a month.

After giving out the job late, the GSS kept changing the format of the questionnaire, all in attempt to frustrate the printer, leading to the shortfall.

By then, the government had been pushed to the wall and Jospon , Oti Yeboah Press, Buck Press, Type Press, Frontier Innolink and Uni Precision, interestingly owned by the Finance Minster, Dr. Kwabena Duffour and hugely favoured by the GSS, had to be fallen on to help salvage a situation which had been deliberately created.

Incidentally, all the above companies took part in the competitive tender, but failed to make the grade. The last –minute call on them fell into the plan worked out by officials of the Ghana Statistical Service.

The GSS officials and other interest people kept changing the format of the questionnaire, leading to a shortfall, and the government was forced to get the failed companies on board. It was noted that even when the GSS chairman had given approval for the winner, Compuprint, to be awarded the printing contract, a document was clandestinely sent to the Central Tender Board, totally different from what the board had decided.

Insiders confirmed that the artificial shortage was created to pave the way for the favoured companies which lost the competitive tender process, to also get their share of the US 50million.

The man, who won the contract, Mr. Carl Ernest Vanderpuye and owner of Compuprint, at the time confirmed his frustrations with officials of the GSS and vested interests in the award of the contract, and indicated his intention to drag the GSS to court for breach of contract.

Kennedy Agyapong told Joy News that the provisional figures announced by the government statistician are not credible and cannot be relied upon for successful planning and policy implementation. Like some Ghanaians, the MP says he and his family were not enumerated by the census officials during the month-long programme.

“Lots of people are complaining, including myself, that they were not counted.” “…Lots of people were not even aware that they were doing the census, so where from that figure?” he told an Accra-based radio station last week.

He added: “The whole thing is a complete flop,” he said, adding, “if it were an advanced country, they would have fired those responsible."

Asked if he is advocating for the officials involved to be fired, the MP was blunt: “Of course, why not! I am not scared to say that. She should be fired! I have nine girls who were not counted".

He said the government statistician should have complained earlier if the resources given her for the job were not enough.

The MP for Evalue-Gwira, Catherine Afeku, shared similar sentiments, saying that she and her family were not enumerated.

But Head of Field Operations at the Statistical Service, David Kombat, has rejected assertions that the census was a failure. He admitted there were a few challenges at the initial stages of the programme, but added that his outfit quickly resolved those challenges.