Auntie Oboshie Verbally Awarded C7Bil Contract

The 2008 Audit report on the Ministry of Information, has indicted former Information and National Orientation Minister, Oboshie Sai Cofie, on two counts of violating the Procurement Law by awarding contracts to the tune of over ¢7 billion by word of mouth

According to the report, aside from the fact that the huge contract did not go through the processes of tender, the values of the two contracts were also above the threshold for the Head of Entity to Award such a contract.

The former Minister was indicted on all two counts with the audit recommending in the case of the first contract that “Hon. Oboshie Sai Cofie, who single-handedly awarded the contracts without reference to the Entity Tender Committee, should be sanctioned in accordance with Section 92 of the Public Procurement Act. “

In the case of the second contract, which was worth over ¢4.07 billion, the audit again recommended that “Hon. Oboshie Sai Cofie, who unilaterally awarded the contract should be sanctioned in accordance with section 92 (1) of the Public Procurement Act. Additionally, Mr. A. A. Ampong who issued the SRA’s without inspecting the various services should also be held responsible.”

CONTRACT 1: GHANA OVERSEAS MARKETING COMPANY LTD

Located near the Tesano Sports Club on the foothills of a residential neighborhood, lies Ghana Overseas Marketing Company, a company which did a lot of contracts for the defunct Ghana@50 Secretariat.

According to the audit report, the company was awarded ¢3.14 billion contract in total violation of Section 92 of the Public Procurement Act.

The report said “Given the value of the contract, the national competitive tendering method should have been used. However, contrary to the legal requirement, apart from the Ministry’s advertisement , there was no indication that other bidders submitted their tenders and that an evaluation was carried out before the contract was awarded to Ghana Oversees Marketing Company Limited”
The audit report further noted that contract was also not awarded by the Entity Tender Committee of the Ministry as required by the Procurement Act.

“Indeed, we found no letter to the contractor. The Chief Executive Officer of the company, “Mr. Abraham Obeng Amoakohene told the audit team at a meeting that the contract was verbally awarded to his company by Hon. Oboshie Sai-Cofie because she was aware that his company is the only one which could deliver the service at low cost,” the report stated.

The report observed that apart from the fact that the size of the contract was above the threshold that the Minister could award, the company charged the Ministry of Information ¢1.20 billion for branding 20 Metro Mass Transit (MMT) buses, while the bus company was paid only ¢240 million leaving Ghana Overseas Marketing with a whopping profit margin of almost ¢1 billion.

In the case of the branding of Inter City STC buses the audit investigation said: “We were told that the bus operator was paid (¢200 million) GHC20,000.00 out of the (¢600 million) GHC60,000.00 that the advertising agency charged the Ministry for branding 10 buses leaving a margin of (¢400 million) GHC40,000.00”
The audit report noted that Ghana Overseas Marketing Company Ltd was “allowed to make a huge profit from the contract due to the absence of other competitors. We found that officials at the Ministry did not even verify whether the company had carried out the services contracted to it in accordance with specifications given by the Minister.”

The report said that in the absence of verifiable records, “we concluded that the Ministry did not receive Value for Money because other contractors did not tender, there was no evaluation by a properly constituted panel and the services delivered were not properly certified by officials of the Ministry”

The Audit report added that their conclusion is further “buttressed by the fact that there were no records at the Ministry, MMI and Inter City STC on the description and registration numbers of the buses which were branded, the bus routes involved and whether the buses were actually in service for the eight month period which, according to the contractor, was agreed upon”

The report said, Inter City STC and MMT could all not provide records of the Transaction. After three months, Intercity could still not produce documents whilst MMT said recent floods had destroyed all documentation on the project.
The report concluded that Ghana Overseas Marketing Company Limited should “produce evidence that it branded the rest of the 31 buses during the period and mounted all the 21 billboards or be made to refund ¢2.59 billion.”

CONTRACT 2: GHANA THEN AND NOW

Six media houses were awarded contracts to produce television advertisements and or documentaries on the previous Government’s achievements under the title “Ghana Then and Now”

The report said from interviews with some of the owners of the beneficiary media companies and Oboshie Sai Cofie, the price per each documentary was agreed at ¢50 million.

In total, Oboshie Sai Cofie awarded a total of ¢4. 75 billion contract to the six media houses without regard to the Public Procurement Law.

According to the findings, even though the media companies resp
onded to advertisements b
y the Ministry to produce documentaries on the past Government’s achievements:
“There was no evaluation by a properly constituted panel and therefore, the contracts were not awarded by the Ministry’s Tender Committee. Most importantly, there were no awards letters. We were informed that they were awarded verbally and unilaterally by the Former Deputy Minister even though their values were above the threshold for the Head of Entity Award.

The values, of these contracts, the report said, “were above the threshold for a Head of Entity to award. The values of these contracts required use of the national competitive tendering”

The report said most of the media entities who were paid monies, did not execute the contracts fully, because according to some of the owners who were interviewed, the contract was not profitable.

The report observed that no due diligence was carried out on the entities prior to their selection and award of contracts, adding that had “due diligence been carried out, on all the media entities which tendered for the jobs, it would have been realized that some of them had provided addresses and contact telephone numbers which were not genuine”

The report has recommended that Ghaledeb, MAks Publications & Media Services, Renaissance Media, Premier Productions Limited are to refund over ¢1.85 billion.
The other two companies who benefited from the award of the contracts included Farm House Productions and Media Touch Productions. Media Touch had the biggest chunk of the contract.

Stay tuned.