Missing cars: Ask Julius Debrah – Administrator General

Former Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah should be queried about the whereabouts of some 208 missing state cars at the presidency, Administrator General, David Yaro, has said.

According to him, documents covering all state properties including the cars at the seat of government and presented to the transition team were signed by Mr Debrah, therefore, if some of them are missing, he would be the appropriate person to be held liable.

There is currently a back-and-forth between the Akufo-Addo government and the erstwhile Mahama administration concerning the number of state vehicles left at the presidency after the president’s press secretary Eugene Arhin revealed that 208 state cars were missing.

The former government subsequently released a statement on Thursday saying it left behind 641 cars and dared the new government to point out the alleged missing ones.

Speaking in an interview with Class News on Friday, 10 February, Mr Yaro said: “If there are areas that need clarification, the minister going out is invited to help to go through the clarification and everything before you (new minister) sign and take off.” “One way of making sure they [cars] are missing is that you had your copy of the handing over notes, did you discover the missing vehicles during the transition? If you did, was it raised with whoever signed? In the case of the office of the president, it was signed off by the Chief of Staff, so, the former chief of staff should have been questioned to explain how those vehicles came not to be there,” Mr Yaro explained.

“We are shocked and we feel very bad about this situation because between 2001 and 2009, similar things happened, and, so, the law establishing our office was promulgated to take care of such things to stem the occurrence of such things, so, if they are happening again it’s so sad. It means our law is not being very effective or we are not respecting the tenets of the law.”