Kwame Owusu, former Director-General of the Ghana Maritime Authority
Barely two years after dominating major news headlines for his decision to fix 11 air conditioners in a renovated two-bedroom apartment for his official use, former Director-General of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), Kwame Owusu has described the noise made by Ghanaians as mediocrity.
“For eleven air conditioners you made so much noise about, I had called it mediocrity because you did not do any benchmarking,” he described on Joy News monitored by MyNewsGh.com.
He wondered why the media, in particular, failed to ask from heads of other state institutions living close to how many air conditioners they had in their building but were overly fixated in digging deep into his which did not stink of any corruption.
“You didn’t ask how many air conditions GHAPOHA, COCOBOD, GOIL was next to me…how many of them? Including some of your small boys who are newsmakers. They have probably 15 in their homes. Before you say something is in excess, you must have done some benchmarking”, he revealed.
It would be recalled that Mr Kwame Owusu had revealed that spending close to 1 million Ghana cedis to renovate a 2 bedroom house into a five-bedroom house is value for money after strict auditing of the facility.
He stated at the time that 11 air conditioners as budgeted were even not enough and that they were supposed to be 13 arguing further that the current number fixed in his official house is mediocrity and non-reflective of my status as the maritime authority boss.
“Some Director-Generals have a house allocated to them and even a separate Guest House for entertainment. And if this Director-General or any other Director-General of Ghana Maritime Authority who is superintending over the Maritime Industry in Ghana cannot have a four-bedroom or five-bedroom then say it is mediocrity. Twenty Percent of my salary or any other predecessor who comes and takes over will be paid. Over a period, it is going to pay for itself. Each time to have an air-condition will be 13 so 11 is even not enough and by the way, we don’t put them all together”, he disclosed at the time.
