Smarttys graft saga ‘vulgar criminality’ – Joyce Aryee

Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Chamber of Mines Joyce Aryee has described as “criminal” and “vulgar” the inflation of prices in the bus branding saga, which resulted in the payment of GHS3.6 million to Smarttys Management and Production.

Her comments come a day after Ghana was ranked 7th in Africa on the Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International.

The branding of each of the 116 buses cost the state GHS31, 000.00.

“Why should anybody inflate the price of a contract and get away with it? It is wrong. This thing about the branding of the buses… if indeed to brand one bus was GHS100, [then] it is so criminal for anybody to inflate the price not to GHS200 but GHS3,000 plus. It’s vulgar, it is totally unacceptable, it is unconscionable,” Ms Aryee told Ekow Mensah-Shalders on the Executive Breakfast Show on Class 91.3fm on Thursday January 28, 2016.

After calls by the Minority and the general public for a probe into the contract, the Chief of Staff directed the Attorney General to retrieve an amount of GHS1.9 million from Smarttys Management and Productions.

Citi News also, recently revealed that the GHS3.6 million of Ghana’s oil revenue, released for the bus branding deal, was meant for the development of the railway sector.

According to the station, the Ministry of Transport did not have the funds to pay Smarttys Management and Productions for the branding, and, thus, diverted the Annual Budget Funding (ABF) amount for the development of railway infrastructure into the branding of the 116 buses.

Ms Joyce Aryee said “our behaviour shows that we are getting more and more rotten.”