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General News of Monday, 17 January 2011

Source: THE SUN

Mills’ Boy In Consultancy Fraud

Presidential staffer Mike Obuobi whom the Justice N.Y.B. Adade Commission established had hoodwinked Ghana Water Company by several billions of cedis in the failed computerization project in 2000, has metamorphosed on the blind side of everyone else as a senior presidential aide at the Osu Castle, raising lots of questions about the sort of people around the presidency.

Background checks with the Ghana Water Company (GWCL) on the failed World Bank project buttressed the findings of the Justice Adade Commission, when a highly-placed official told THE SUN while on the prowl that, there was a virtual free-for-all rape of financial resources at the time which saw so many officials soil their fingers and line their pockets.

The official told THE SUN that the computerization project was such a failed one, which is the reason why there is so much mess with the corporate institution’s billing currently and added that, even though the Water Company would not recommend that the fraudsters be persecuted, it would not stand in the way of future institutions desirous of pressing charges.

However, smooth-talking Obuobi, has debunked claims that he is unfit to hold any public office on account of his role in the project and says he successfully carried it out, advising THE SUN and Ghanaians to resolve to concentrate on the positive sides of a person rather than his negative.

Obuobi, with so much solid taste and wearing American-designer suit yet spotting nervy fingers, puffed so many sticks of cigarettes in a relatively short time as he visited the lavatory often and often, when THE SUN confronted him on his role in the failed GWCL computerization project where billions of cedis were raked without breaking sweat.

Indeed at one stage during the probe in 2000, the probing late NDC stalwart Major Clend Sowu was so furious he suggested that Obuobi be flown down from comfortable America to answer charges, when he found out he had collected his consultancy cheque of $290,245 for no work done yet, the presidential staffer told THE SUN that he had documents to prove elsewhere which he never provided throughout the deliberations.

THE SUN is still probing and would feed readers with further details in subsequent write-ups.