FREE PRESS

The Free Press reports that the Accountant-General's Office is said to have defrauded a local foreign consumer commodity firm, Merchantiles Group Ghana Limted (MGL) to the tune of 217,586,350 cedis being cost of consumer goods supplied to the Accountant-General's Office in 1996. In a splash front page headline: "Accountant-General in Fraud Charge!", The Free Press says in the lead story that the transactions were conducted with the Hire-Purchase Department of the Accountant-General's Office, otherwise known as Treasury Headquarters, in 1996. The Free Press says the Treasury High-Purchase Society, with the help of the Controller and Accountant-General's Department, entered into agreement with Merchantiles Group Ghana Limited for the supply of various home appliances and electronics to its staff last year. According to the paper, payment for the cost of the goods were to be deducted at source from the affected persons' monthly salaries which the Controller and Accountant-General's department did but rather issued dud cheques that were later dishonoured by the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB). GRI