Ministry discovers fraud in Contractors' Certificates

The Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday it has discovered that most projects purported to have been completed between November and December and for which contractors submitted certificates demanding payment, have not been fully executed.

Briefing the press in Accra, Mr Kofi Opoku Manu, Chief Director of the Ministry said some of the projects that the contractors, who besieged the Ministry's premises last December, were demanding payment for are yet to start.

For instance, he said, a 118 million-cedi four-storey building supposed to have been completed and for which payment certificates had been approved by the relevant agencies was yet to start.

"What is on site currently are just the prepared land and a heap of sand."

In some cases, the project cost has been bloated, he added but could not give the total cost of fraud involved immediately, saying, investigations are still being conducted.

In December last year, angry contractors besieged the premises of the Ministry of Finance in Accra for days demanding payment for projects they claimed they had long completed for the various public institutions.

Mr Opoku Manu said unlike the previous years, certificates received for payment in December last year amounted to nearly 70 billion cedis.

He said the sharp rise in the number of certificates coupled with the non-compromising attitude of the contractors, drew suspicion from the Ministry that "something might have gone wrong somewhere."

The Chief Director alleged that the contractors manhandled him and others during their siege at the Ministry.

He said apart from the fact that there was not enough funds to pay for the certificates due to a fall in revenue inflow at the time, the Ministry deliberately delayed payment to allow the Project Implementation Monitoring Unit (PIMU) to crosscheck the claims.

So far, PIMU has submitted findings on four regions, revealing massive fraudulent deals.

The regions are Western, Ashanti, Central and Upper West. He did not rule out collusion by the various decentralised agencies responsible for monitoring and approving the certificates.

Present at the briefing were officials of the PIMU, headed by Mr Hudu Siita and Major Mohammed Tara, Director of Budget.

Mr Opoku Manu expressed concern about the situation and said the Ministry would investigate the cases and take appropriate action against the culprits.

It will also continue to monitor projects vigorously, he said, adding, "We will not do a global processing of certificates."

He hinted that a long-term strategy is being worked out to check the recurrence of the deal, saying details might be spelt out in this year's budget statement.

He, however, gave the assurance that those certificates found to be genuine would be paid in the second week of February, as indicated by the Minister of Finance at a meeting with the contractors.