$16m Kickback: GPHA Boss Stands Indicted

..Over Saga Of The Two Million Dollar Afterthought

Answers provided to CHRAJ by the Director General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Mr. Ben Owusu-Mensah, has caused procurement experts to damn both the GPHA boss for handling the finances of the state-owned GPHA as if it is his personal property.

Also coming in for condemnation is the Board of Directors of the Authority; for their role in rubber-stamping financial commitments entered into by the D-G without prior approval of the Board.

Of particular worry to the procurement experts that The Ghanaian Lens has spoken with are the reasons given by the Director General of the GPHA, in his response to CHRAJ, to explain why and how a contract that was awarded for 14.7million dollars eventually rose to become almost 17million dollars.

In his response to allegations of corruption and insider dealings that have been levelled against him before CHRAJ, Mr. Ben Owusu Mensah states that, “Six months after signing the Contract we were advised by our engineers at ZPMC, that it will be beneficial to GPHA if we took advantage and increased the length of the booms of the ship to shore cranes, so that the cranes will in future be able to serve bigger container vessels calling [at] the port.”

“This advice was accepted by management and got the approval of the Board on the 19th of December 2003. (Copy of approval by Board Chairman attached as Exhibit D). The cost of the modification was $1,535,000,000 bringing the final Contract Price to $16,755,000. (Copy of modification specification attached as Exhibit E). So if the bid price for the project rose from $14.67 to $16.75 million, this is the explanation. Where is the corruption?” Mr. Ben Owusu Mensah wrote.

But procurement experts have damned the explanation, saying that it betrays a certain cavalier attitude to spending the taxpayers’ money.

“I am not convinced by Ben Owusu Mensah’s explanations at all. A man in his position has got to know that with such a significant variation as two million dollars, the most appropriate thing to have done was to abrogate the contract, especially as the Chinese had not started executing the contract, and re-invite fresh bids based on the latest specifications. Why did he not advise the GPHA board do so, rather he agreed to spend that money and got the board to acquiesce?” asked one procurement expert.

“Assuming that there is no corruption as the GPHA boss would have us believe, the significant variations in the contract sum should have informed him and the board that the Chinese had deliberately underbided to win the contract, and that there could be other significant variations before they finish executing the contract,” the expert opined.

“By his own explanation, what Ben Owusu Mensah is saying is that, quite contrary to procurement rules and regulations, he and the GPHA board committed the GPHA to purchasing equipment worth $2 million with our money without having to open the purchase to tender,” the procurement expert elaborated.

“It would be very interesting to find out what kinds of equipment the Italian company that is said to have offered a bid of around 17million dollars had in mind. I don’t know for sure, but it is entirely possible that their 17million dollar bid comprises these same equipments and even more. This is why the GPHA should have re-invited tenders based on the new specifications,” the expert stated.

These views were largely shared by other procurement experts that this paper has spoken with; all of whom demand anonymity since they are still in the employ of the state, and by extension the government.

Mr. Ben Owusu Mensah is currently being investigated by CHRAJ over allegations of insider dealing and corruption that have been leveled against him by one Fred Lagbo.

Mr. Lagbo, according to documents filed with CHRAJ by his counsel, Egebrt Faibille Jnr. Esq., which documents The Ghanaian Lens has sighted, was “at all material times from the inception of KF94 in 1994 to 2005” a Director of KF94, the local agents of Zhenhua Port Machinery Company Limited (ZPMC), the Chinese company in the centre of the brouhaha.

The said Fred Lagbo’s case was that a contract awarded to Zhenhua Port Machinery Company Limited (ZPMC) to provide ship to shore gantry cranes (STS) and four rubber-tyred gantry cranes (RTGS) for the GPHA was fraught with corruption and insider dealings by the GPHA boss.

Mr. Lagbo alleges that the initial contract sum of 14.7 million dollars was later padded with an additional 2million dollars that was supposed to be kickbacks that was to be shared among key personalities, including the GPHA boss.

According to the documents filed by his lawyer, Mr. Lagbo does not claim to be actuated by any sense of patriotism for blowing the lid off the corruption and insider dealings that he is alleging, but that he “admits that his confessions may have been somewhat influenced by the denial of the $100,000 promised him as part of the booty from this corruption perpetrated on the Ghanaian taxpayer.”

Mr. Lagbo, who has had to flee from Ghana for his own safety is being represented at CHRAJ by his personal representative, Mr. Alfred Ogbamey, the managing editor of the Gye Nyame Concord, while Lawyer Faibille Jnr. is legal counsel.

Stay tuned to The Ghanaian Lens for more interesting revelations as the saga unfolds.