For the past months I have been investigating a 419 Nigeria company operating in Ghana called Telegenicca. This 419 company has been awarded a contract to construct Telecom mast in most parts of Ghana by Huawei who happen to be the main contractor/supplier for Vodafone Gt.

Instead of Telegenicca taking advantage of the opportunity given them over the native of the land and prove many wrong of the fraudulent deals associated with most Nigerian companies, they have decided to use one of the most popular 419 methods prevalent in Nigeria to defraud innocent Ghanaian contractors with the help of some ministers of state and the police service.

We have heard numerous cases where this company have defrauded a number of Ghanaian contractors whilst Vodafone GT and Huawei look on. Most of this contractor said they have made numerous complaints against the company to both Vodafone GT and Huawei but to no avail.

What usually happen is that Telegenicca will award a contract to innocent Ghanaian contractors with no mobilization fee, when the contractors have done between 80-90% of the project and put in application for payment, this 419 company will start giving them excuses upon excuse, some of such excuses are: Huawei has not paid them yet, the director have travelled, the account is not in, the account have resigned or travelled etc just to avoid paying the contractors who have gone for bank loans at about 30-35% interest just to complete the job and get a little revenue to feed their families. When the contractor threaten to abandon their site until they have fulfilled their part of the contract, then this 419 company will bring in another contractor to complete the remaining 10% of the work with the protection from our own Ghana police service to avoid any clashes with the original contractor. When they complete the remaining 10% with the help of our police service, they will then inform the original contractor that it cost them almost half of the total contract sum to complete the remaining 10% so they will only be entitled to just about 50% of the contract sum for completing about 90% of the project as revenue. When the contractors threaten to take them to court they claim they have the backing from the Ghana police and some ministers of state and that it will just be a waste of their time.

This thing has been going on for sometime now and Vodafone GT Huawei the government is looking on whiles a 419 Nigerian company is defrauding fellow Ghanaians.

I am appealing to the minister of communication to look into the activities of Telegenicca and expel them from Ghana, before our oil start flowing. We cannot afford to accommodate such dubious companies in Ghana. The minister should also look into the activities of Staff of Huawei and Vodafone Gt who have been conniving with Telegenicca to cheat/defraud up and coming construction companies in Ghana. We have to protect our people; we cannot sit for this fraudulent Nigerian companies to Cheat/defraud out own people. If the Government fail to act the Ghanaian contractors will take the law into their own hands and the consequence will not be pleasant to the eyes.

Author Adumua Sam -Ghana