Scandal At BOST (2): MD'S Lie Exposed

Mr. J.K.O. Addo-Yobo, Managing Director of Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) in a desperate bid to clear his administration, has denied any wrong doing in the payment of sitting allowances to the three-member sub-committee of the board of directors tasked to draw up an organizational chart for the company.

Reacting to The Chronicle's lead story on Monday headlined Scandal Rocks BOST during a newspaper review programme on Peace FM Radio, Addo-Yobo claimed that the committee members were paid the normal sitting allowances that did not exceed ?1 million each.

"No one in the three member sub-committee tasked to draw up the organizational chart was paid more than the normal sitting allowance which was between ?750,000 and ?800,000; none of them, let me say, was paid anything above one million cedis," Addo-Yobo told Sefa-Kayi, the host of the programme.

However, documents bearing the payment of the sitting allowances sighted by The Chronicle showed that Addo-Yobo was far from the truth when he insisted that his administration never paid more than one million cedis as sitting allowances.

The documents indicated that a member was paid as much as ?3.5 million on September 11, 2003 and another received ?3 million on July 25 as sitting allowances. Again on September 4, 2003,

two of the members were paid ?3 million each as sitting allowances.

Beside the ?3 million payment it also emerged that BOST paid ?2.5 million and ?2 million each to the committee members at different sittings.

The lowest payment The Chronicle spotted on the documents was ?500,000 on May 22, 2003 and on July 18, 2003 to two of the members.

In all the sub-committee sat 29 times from May 8, 2003 to September 24, 2003.