Where Is SFO Report On TMA’s Scandal?

There is controversy surrounding the whereabouts of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) report on alleged financial scandal at the Tema Municipal Assembly sometime last year. While the SFO is insisting that the report has been sent to the Attorney General’s (A-G’s) department for advise, the AG’s office says it has not received any such report.

SFO sources told the ''Evening News'' that the report was ready and had been forwarded to the AG’s office for the necessary action to be taken. But the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Papa Owusu Ankomah thinks otherwise. According to him, the SFO had not furnished his office with any report on the alleged scandal. ''I have not sighted any such report ever since I assumed office about three months ago'', he told the paper.

In such circumstance, he said he could not make any further comments on the case.

In December last year, a Ghana News Agency story quoted a report by the SFO that cited three officials of the TMA for causing ?1.2 billion financial loss to the state through the award of two contracts by the assembly.

However, the existence of such a report was denied by the government and the GNA had to retract the story. The officials mentioned in the report were Samuel Evans Ashong Narh, TMA Chief Executive; Alhaji I. M. T. Husseini, a retired Co-ordinating Director and Samuel Aryee, the Finance Officer.

Since the denial by government of the report’s existence, officials of the SFO have been tight-lipped about the details of the investigations and last week, SFO sources only directed the ''Evening News'' to the AG’s department.