Osafo Maafo freed by court over woyome saga

Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo, former Minister of Education and Sports under the NPP Government was on Monday discharged by the Financial Court in Accra.

This was after he was crossed-examined by the lawyers of Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the businessman involved in the GH¢51.2 million judgment debt.

Mr. Osafo Maafo, who is a prosecution witness in the case, insisted that neither Woyome nor his company contributed any money to the construction of the four stadia in the country for CAN 2008.

Alfred Woyome is standing trial for defrauding by false pretences and causing financial loss to the State.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was granted a GH¢20 million bail with three sureties to be justified.

Mr. Osafo Maafo said that the four stadia in Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and Sekondi were funded by the Government of Ghana and with a loan from Barclays Bank.

Though the Lawyers of Woyome tendered in several documents, they were rejected by the witness with the explanation they covered funding for health related matters and had nothing to do with the building of the stadia.

Mr. Osafo Maafo said that new procurement law emphasized the need for the procurement entity to look at the credibility, viability and timeliness of the various companies tendering for the stadium construction.

He said even though the Central Tender Review Board made their recommendation to the procurement entity, the ministry of education and sports had to look at the timeliness since the Government had to work within time to get the stadia project underway.

Mr. Osafo Maafo said the Board gave Government the option to use its own resources for the project and the Government chose that alternative, since time was not on its side regarding the completion of the four stadia.

Mr. Osafo Maafo insisted that the tendering process, which the accused claim was abrogated, had not been concluded, so the issue of the termination of a contract did not arise.

He said no company was issued with a letter by the procurement entity because the procurement process was not concluded.

Mr. Osafo Maafo said the letter from VAMED/ M-Powapak indicating that Bank Austria had expressed its support for the project was to testify for the authenticity of the company and not that it had been given the go-ahead.

Mr. Justice John Ajet-Nassam, the trial Judge, adjourned the case to October, 30, 2012 when courts would have returned from legal vacation.

Former Deputy Sports Minister, Mr. Osei Bonsu Amoah, who has been subpoena by the court, is likely to be the next prosecution witness.

Sometime in January 2005, the Government invited bids for the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan and Baba Yara Sports stadia and the construction of two stadia at Sekondi-Takoradi and Tamale.

At the end of the bidding process, some companies were short-listed and invited to submit proposals for the projects and among them were M-Powapak Gmb/VAMED Gmbh and Company.

At the end of the evaluation process, the finance and evaluation committee declared the financial proposals of M-powapak /Vamed Engineering as the most responsive and recommended them to the Central Tender Review Board.

However, before the Board could receive final approval, the Government terminated the process.

Meanwhile, in the course of the tendering process, Vamed Engineering assigned its rights and responsibilities to Waterville Holding (BVI) Ltd.

After the termination of the tendering process, Waterville protested and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government, to commence rehabilitation works on the Accra and El-Wak stadia.

The MoU signed on November 30, 2005, required Waterville to engineer funding for the project on behalf of the Government from the Bank of Austria Creditanstalt, guaranteed by the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.

The company arranged bridge financing and subsequent to the MoU, Waterville was authorised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports to move to the site and start work pending the signing of a formal contract.

On December 19, 2005, Waterville engaged M-powapak, led by Woyome, to provide it with financial engineering services in respect of the projects.

A formal contract for the rehabilitation of Ohene Djan and El-Wak stadia was entered into by the Government and Waterville Holding Limited on April 26, 2006.

However, before the contract could become effective, the Government terminated same due to Waterville’s inability to engineer funding for the project as contained in the MoU, which formed a condition precedent to the contract.

Waterville, who initially protested the termination, eventually accepted the move and proceeded to claim monies for the initial works done under the MoU.

The Government paid a substantial amount of Waterville's claims out of which the company fully paid M-powapak, represented by the accused, for the financial engineering services rendered under the contract.

Payment to the accused for his services was duly acknowledged by him in a termination agreement dated 25th November 2006, which brought the relationship between them to an end.

Sometime in August 2009, however, the accused having received all monies due him under the financial engineering services, rendered to Waterville, took advantage of the change in Government and falsely represented to government officials that the Government owed him money for financial engineering services rendered to it under the contract with Waterville.

In his claim to Government officials, the accused, who had no contract with Government, claimed that as part of the financial engineering services rendered, he managed to arrange €1,106,470,587 for the Government through the Bank Austria Creditans out of which he claimed was entitled to two per cent as financial engineering fees.

Investigations, however, revealed that there were no such funds made available for the benefit of the country by Bank Austria as claimed by the accused.

Further investigations revealed that the accused had no contract with the Government to provide any services.

The only arrangement on financial engineering services the accused had was with Waterville Holdings Limited, and services had been fully paid for and acknowledged by the accused in a termination agreement.**