Saga of the $55,000 Withdrawal

The saga of the $55,000 secret withdrawal from the accounts of the Forestry Commission (FC) for the purchase of a Toyota Landcruiser for Mr. Thomas Broni, then deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry, has taken another turn. Some members of the Ghana timber association (GTA) have appealed to the president and the board of the FC to probe the chief executive of the commission, Mr. Boachie Dapaah, for his role in releasing the money for the purchase of the car.

The members who pleaded anonymity told The Chronicle in an interview in Accra that the circumstances under which the chief executive of the FC withdrew the money from the accounts of the FC without the board’s authorisation should be investigated since there is a lot of suspicion about the whole deal.

A spokesman for the group said the claim by Broni that Professor Kassim Kasanga, then the minister, authorised Mr. Sampson Adjei, the chief director to withdraw the money was untrue.

“In any case if it was Prof. Kasanga who authorised the chief director to write the letter for the money, what prevents the chief executive of the FC from going through the due process?”
The group noted that it was high time people in responsible positions kept to laid-down rules and refrain from doing things to suit their whims and caprices.
The matter, according to insiders has caused some disquiet among the board members who think that it was not the responsibility of the commission to be purchasing cars for the ministry with its scarce budgetary allocations.
The decision to acquire the vehicle followed a series of meetings between the deputy minister and the chief executive of the commission to discuss matters concerning projects being undertaken by the FC and other issues such as rot and fraudulent deals in the forestry industry.
The chief director was mandated to write to the FC on August 15, last year authorizing the FC to release $55,000 termed as a loan for the purchase of a Landcruiser for Broni, in spite of the official car allocated to him.
Broni denied any wrongdoing in the withdrawal of the money from the accounts of the FC for the purchase of the car, saying, “I need a car and my ministry got me a car which I used for my official duties.”
He told The Chronicle, “When I was leaving, I pleaded with my colleague (Prof. Dominic Fobih) the new minister of Lands and Forestry to allow me use the vehicle for some time until last week when I released it to the Ministry of Lands and Forestry.”
Broni said that there was nothing wrong in the ministry taking a loan from the FC to purchase a car for him since the amount is to be repaid.
Dapaah told The Chronicle that he was approached in August last year, by the ministry for financial assistance to enable it purchase a vehicle for the deputy minister because his official car had broken down. He obliged because Broni was in charge of the FC’s plantation projects.