New SIC Boss Took BMW Bribe

When the government asked the top three executives of the State Insurance (SIC) Ltd to proceed on leave, the news was received with joy.

But this joy was short-lived when it was realised that some of people who formed the corrupt core of the past administrations had been brought in to fill their shoes. Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and National Lotteries face similar dilemmas.

Chronicle’s investigations into the background of some of the Acting Executives and their roles in the past administrations have brought to light some worrying developments. Information available to Chronicle, verified in a follow-up interview with Mr. Victor Kusi Yeboah, one of the six general managers of the State Insurance Company (SIC) Ltd. who was elevated to the position of acting Managing Director (MD), shows he does not measure up to the yardstick of zero tolerance for corruption, the standard being vigorously pursued by the NPP’s government.

Chronicle can reveal that in 1997, Kusi, who was the head of the Fire Department, took a bribe in the form of a BMW saloon car with registration number GR 9770N. The car was taken from a certain Guy Van Der Auwera, a Belgium national and a customer and insurance claimant of the company. The BMW Saloon car was taken in order to facilitate the processing of documents for a claim settlement to Mr. Van Der Auwera, Chronicle has learnt. The acting SIC boss entered into a secret ‘bilateral’ with Mr Van Der Auwera weeks after a part of his restaurant at Airport residential area was razed by fire. Van Der Auwera had previously taken fire insurance policy cover from the SIC, Chronicle has gathered. Kusi is reported to have demanded a BMW saloon car as a condition for expedient settlement of the claim when Van Der Auwera reported the razing of part of his restaurant to Kusi as the head of the Fire Underwriting Department.

Having put his cards on the table, and to avoid unnecessary dalliance, Van Der Auwera, who was in dire need of his claim, had no option other than to succumb to Kusi’s pressure when he imported a Montreal Blue BMW 318 saloon from Germany some weeks after the deal was reached. Reacting to the concerns raised by the Chronicle in a questionnaire, the Acting MD of the SIC tendered a receipt dated September 28, 1997, which indicates that the car was purchased from Guy Van Der Auwera for $10,000.

“I, Guy Van Der Auwera, received today 28.09.1997 the sum of 5,800 USD (Five thousand eight hundred US Dollars) in cash and a Ghana Commercial Bank Cheque from USD 4,200 (Four thousand two hundred US dollars) as settlement for the BMW CAR 318 with chassis number WBCA 91040CG 35458 from Mr. Victor Kusi Yeboah”, a document tendered by Kusi as receipt stated. In a follow-up telephone interview, Kusi told Chronicle that a competent mechanic was hired to test the car somewhere around the Airport area.

“You cannot buy such a costly car without testing it to ensure that it was value for money so when I finally decided to buy the car, I sent a qualified mechanic to the site at the Airport area who tested the car before I purchased it”, Kusi told Chronicle. He claimed it was wrong for someone to link the claim with the car because he bought the car from Guy Van long after the claim was settled.

Documents available to the Chronicle prove that he (Kusi) ‘purchased’ the car between the first and the final instalment cheque. The final cheque, for $200,752 was issued and paid to Guy Van Der Auwera on November 11, 1997 while the first instalment of $297,000 was settled on August 27,1997. This brought the total claim to $497,752. Moreover, a catalogue of the car’s documents in Chronicle’s custody raises many questions when comparing the answers and the position of Kusi in the whole episode.

While the acting MD of SIC was trying to make Chronicle believe that he sent a competent mechanic to test the car somewhere near the Airport before he paid for it, the documents at the disposal of the Chronicle show that the car had not even arrived in the country at the time Kusi claims it was tested by the mechanic. This has therefore raised a lot of questions about the document he submitted to Chronicle, as the receipt of the car is dated as September 28, 1997.

The car actually arrived at Tema Harbour on October 8, 1997, two weeks after the so-called mechanic tested it to ascertain whether the car was in good condition before he paid for it. Another irregularity is that the transfer of the ownership of the car was effected more than one year after the date Kusi claimed he had made the final payment. Kusi claimed he was given all the documents after he made the final payment on August 28, 1997, while the transfer of ownership was only effected on November 24, 1998.

The question then, is why did it take him over one year after purchasing the car for the ownership to be effected to him? Chronicle gathered that the ownership could not be effected immediately because the scandal had by then been leaked to some big shots in the company headed by Mr.L.K. Molbila. As a result the transfer of the ownership was halted and carried out immediately after the Molbila’s administration was booted out from the office in 1998. Again, Chronicle’s unofficial sources at the Ghana Commercial Bank’s Liberty branch indicate that no payment of $4,200 was made to Guy Van Der Auwera. Chronicle’s investigations revealed that there was no quantity file on that particular claim document to determine the extent of damage for SIC to have paid such huge claims to Guy Van, and this has further raised very serious questions over that claim since nobody can tell the method adopted before arriving at $497,752 to be paid Guy Van. Besides, Kusi is reported to have taken a huge amount as a rent advance from a staff member who was transferred from Accra to Kumasi in 1998 with the promise of giving the staff member his house for rent. At the time of filling this story the said staff member and his family were still living in SIC’s senior staff Guesthouse.

Kusi continued to evade the staff member until immediately after he was elevated to MD when he instruscted the Ashanti Regional Manager to allocate three rooms at the guesthouse to the affected staff. The move was in order to patch up the differences with the staff member, but it has also created inconvenience to staff who were supposed to benefit from the guest house. Surprisingly, Kusi denied ever having taken a pessewa from anybody as rent advance, and also defended everything including secret salaries malfeasance that characterised the past administration headed by Ebenezer Allotey. Messrs. E.C de Graft and Francis Nsiah Afriyie, the two others have already taken cover at other insurance companies. Chronicle has also spoken to the Minister of Finance on this issue.