$200,000 Gone With The Wind

....GNFS, SCOA in tussle over $200,000
At a time when the government is struggling to equip the Ghana National Fire service (GNFS), $200,000 which is equivalent to 1.7bn cedis that it paid for the importation of an ultra modern fire tender has so far become bad money.

SCOA Motors Ghana, an automobile importer which took the money late 2000 on the agreement that it would deliver the IVECO tender in three months never did. Soon after, SCOA filed papers to declare itself bankrupt. Bankruptcy simply means without enough money to pay what you owe, and it is often declared in court to make it valid.

The General Manager of SCOA, Gadzekpo told a court at the former Ministry of Cocoa Affairs, chaired by Justice Ziblim, that his company had gone broke and could not honour the obligation of delivering the fire tender.

The GNFS, incensed by the surprising disappointment, pressed the case till the Judge was transferred from the circuit court. After that the case was not called for a long time. When ?Chronicle? checked at the court last week, a clerk there, Duncan Williams, said the docket could not be located.

As a result of devastating fire outbreaks that hit Makola, Ghana?s biggest market place and other busy market as well as residences and factories of the national capital in late 1990s and year 2000, the then government decided to import four powerful engines.

These were three Mercedes Benz (Zieggler) fire engines, which could produce Foam water, and water to fight blazing fires at a very fast speed. Accra retained one and one each was given to Kumasi and Koforidua. But the government found the need to import the IVECO which can carry as much as 15000 gallons of water as back-up to the Benz tender.

A tender board was organised, chaired by the current chief officer. And though SCOA Motors had never supplied the service with any tenders the company managed to convince the board it would be the best choice. SCOA was given the offer.

According to documents sighted at the GNFS head office, Gadzekpo was given 1.7bn cedis in dollars. After collecting the $200,000 and failing to deliver the IVECO truck he wrote to the GNFS to plead for more time, saying he could not raise enough dollars to import due to ?shortage of that foreign currency? on the local market.

At another time, the GNFS was informed that the truck was on high seas on its way to the Tema Harbour. Then out of the blue SCOA declared bankruptcy.

When the Cocoa Affairs Court was contacted, the registrar there explained that all cases that had been handled by Justice Ziblim were transferred to the Accra Regional Circuit Court-formerly regional tribunal. And it was the Regional Circuit Court that ?Chronicle was told that the docket on the $200,000 case was nowhere to be found.

If really the file of the case were missing it may not only mean a loss of the $200,000 or the end of the GNFS dream of acquiring the powerful fire engine. It may also mean that the fate of other customers who sued SCOA after it had declared bankruptcy would hang in the balance.

Dr Ato Quarshie and Kwabena Fosu, both ex-ministers in the erstwhile government, are two such people who sued SCOA. But the Public Relations Officer of the GNFS, Ekow Aban, insisted that the on the case is somewhere between the two courts and must be found.