PIAC Chairman goofs over bus branding

Chairman of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), Professor P K Buah-Bassuah, has retracted his earlier comment on the supposed refund of the money that was used for the branding of 116 Metro Mass buses.

In December 2015, news broke about how GH¢3.6 million was spent on the branding, to the astonishment of many Ghanaians.

Consequently, the Minister of Transport, Dzifa Attivor, resigned, probably to end the story.

Unfortunately for the resigned minister, civil society organisations and other interested parties decided to ask questions and insisted on making sure that the money was paid back into public vault, and people who had hands in what many Ghanaians saw as “needless investment,” punished.

At a PIAC public forum in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, Prof. Buah-Bassuah, in his presentation of the 2015 PIAC Annual Report on the management of the petroleum revenues, hinted that the amount used for branding of the Metro Mass Transport buses had been paid back.

However, at another public forum in Wa in the Upper West Region, he realized that he had given out wrong information in his earlier presentation, and also given wrong answers in an interview with the media in Bolgatanga. He apologized to anyone who felt deceived by the “mistake.”

According to Professor Buah-Bassuah, he meant to say that the excess money on the GHc3.6 million was what had been paid and not the GHc3.6 million. He asserted that he “failed” to explain further during his presentation and also misunderstood the question during an interview.

“Actually in my presentation, I showed the principal, that was GH¢3.6 million for the Metro Mass bus branding. However, when Members of Parliament realized that there were excesses, the excesses were refunded and I meant the excesses and not the substantial amount. The GH¢3.6 million remains outstanding and so I meant the excesses, but I didn’t make myself clear in that interview,” he explained.

He assured the Wa forum participants that the refunded excess money would appear in the 2016 PIAC Annual Report.