The collapse of the Omnibus Services Authority (OSA), one time the leading transport company in Ghana, finally came when Friday, last week management and staff of the company were ushered into the weekend with the seizure of their property for auctioning.
OSA owes Mobil Oil (Gh.) Limited to the tune of ?248,452,491, being fuel supply to the transport company over the years.
An Accra High Court in October, last year, confiscated property of OSA to Mobil Oil (Gh) Limited to auction to defray the debt.
Based on the order, OSA was given all the necessary opportunity to settle their indebtedness, even after court judgement was delivered, but two post-dated cheques issued by OSA to Mobil Oil were dishonoured on presentation and no effort was made to redeem those dishonoured cheques with cash, this paper can reveal.
The execution exercise was carried out in a Hollywood fashion under the direction of the management of Johnson Complex, the debt collectors and official auctioneers for Mobil Oil, under police supervision involving court bailiffs from the Accra High Court.
It started some few minutes after 5 am and lasted nearly three hours.
A notice dated January 11, 2002 was pasted on all the vehicles at the premises of OSA, indicating that public auction of the vehicles starts on Tuesday, January 22, 2002.
The condition of sale under the terms of auctioning has it that the highest bidder shall be the purchaser, and the terms are strictly by cash or bankers cheques.
It was a pathetic scene as staff of the transport company, most of whom have not been paid for the past seven to eight months and hoping to make some cash on daily rounds for survival, were visited with the shocking and traumatic news that they were losing their jobs, after months of work without pay.
The staff members mobilized in groups to discuss the thorny issue, which had all along been kept a secret within management circles, with some of them openly criticizing management for the mess that collapsed the company and vowing to use all means to retrieve their outstanding salary.
Several vehicles which were returning to the premises for business were signalled by the angry staff to park somewhere around the Kaneshie market, and monitoring by this reporter indicated as many as seven OSA vehicles parked around the market. Some of their registration numbers were GR 3944 J, GR 1443 N, GR 4517 F and GR 4528 F.
Drivers who returned to account for their daily sales made had no alternative but to pocket the money, while most senior management members were spotted opening lockers, apparently to make some last minute survival moves.
Some angry staff told this reporter that a day before the execution exercise, a tipper truck fully loaded with furniture was taken out of the premises under the instruction of the Managing Director and no reason was assigned for that unusual decision.
The workers did not know that that day was their last day at work.
A tour around the premises of OSA indicated as many as over 50 condemned vehicles, parked with no attempt to bring them back onto the road, and the staff who spoke to this reporter said most of those vehicles had only minor problems and management always claimed there was no cash to repair them in spite of several loans contracted.
This paper is still investigating some of the outstanding loans contracted by the collapsed OSA and will bring to readers how the issue is being handled especially now that the company has collapsed.
