General News of Monday, 5 December 2016

Source: The New Statesman

NDC in final create, loot and depart

File photo: NDC supporters at a campaign rally File photo: NDC supporters at a campaign rally

Documents available to the Daily Statesman indicate that the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress government is engaged in a last minute unusual evil plan of naked looting of the national coffers, ostensibly to further its vote buying agenda.

The paper can report that the governing NDC, knowing its time is up, has rushed to the Public Procurement Authority with several questionable sole sourcing deals for approval, valued at nearly GHC2 billion, including road contracts and contracts for supply of Cocobod insecticides.

It is the pursuit of this ‘create, loot and depart’ agenda that has led to the current situation whereby the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), which was established to reduce poverty and create wealth, has now been turned into an avenue for obvious stealing from the national coffers.

Led by its Chief Executive Officer, Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, MASLOC has spent a whopping GHC10 million on the acquisition of 1,000 motor tricycles, ostensibly for distribution to NDC foot soldiers to motivate them to join the governing party’s desperate effort to save President Mahama from defeat in Wednesday’s elections.

This means each of the tricycles is costing the nation GHC10, 000. But industry players put the actual price of one tricycle at GHC5,000, which means the contract has been inflated by 50%, with the Mahama government virtually stealing GH5 million from the nation through this deal.

The firms that were selected for the sole-sourced contract, awarded just last week, are CRISJOE COMPANY LIMITED, SPELL TRUST LIMITED AND IEL LOGISTICS.

“The Centre is by this application seeking the approval…to apply the restricted tendering method to procure specialized motorized tricycles,” a letter from the MASLOC Chief Executive Officer to the Public Procurement Authority states in part.

It is clear that Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, the MASLOC CEO who is known for her social media attacks on the NPP flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, than working for Ghana, and even when she chooses to work, does nothing but engages only in ‘creating and looting’ to satisfy her paymasters.

Public Policy Research Centre, Danquah Institute, in a recent report, revealed that Ghana had lost US$1.93 billion in sole-sourced contracts since 2010.

According to the report, an estimated 65% savings could have been made if those deals were subjected to competitive tendering and would have saved the country a whopping GH¢7.8 million.