A Report On The Investigation Of ....

THE COMMITTEE
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION SUB-COMM.
WA MUNICIPAL ASSEMBLY
17TH OCTOBER, 2011

A REPORT ON THE INVESTIGATION OF ARBITRARY COLLECTION OF MONIES FROM MARKET WOMEN IN RESPECT OF UNAPPROVED ALOCATION OF SPACES ALONG THE WA MAIN MARKET STORM DRAIN.

With regards to recent developments and numerous complaints from the public concerning the arbitrary allocation of spaces, and collection of money from market women, the F&A chairman has put in place a 3-member Ad hoc committee to investigate into the activities. The ad hoc committee members were Hon. Yussif Yakubu Sungumo(member), Hon Abdullah Nuhu (member), and Hon Alhassan Suleman (chairman).
The Financial Memoranda for Districts Assemblies spelt out the duties of the Finance and Administration Sub – Committee and out of the lot which this committee adhered to are,
• To ensure that revenue is being collected in accordance with the approved Estimates and, if it is not, to make an immediate investigation;
• To investigate losses and make recommendations to the Assembly.
Besides the allocations, it is alleged that monies exchanged hands between some Hon. Assembly members and these poor market women on one instance, and between these and the Municipal building Inspector. With a great concern and more importantly looking at the dwindling nature of the Wa Municipal Assembly Revenue Mobilization since the beginning of the year to date, measures were put in place to detect and stop all the revenue leakage in order to improve on the revenue mobilization. Thus, the F&A sub - committee could not afford to sit back unconcerned and watch money meant for the Assembly go into ‘wrong hands’. This is basically the basis of our assignment.
The three member committee first of all met the Municipal Chief Executive, the presiding member and the Municipal Director to inform them about these developments and a full permission was given to the committee to carry on with this investigation and subsequently report their findings and recommendations to the Assembly.
This committee in their investigations came out with a number of findings and recommendations and therefore wishes to outline them.
FINDING
• Procedure. The normal procedure for the allocation of a piece of land for a person to put a temporal structure is first of all for the person to write an application to the Assembly for approval. Then if all the necessary things are done, the building inspector will go and allocate the place for the person. But with this storm drain in the market concerned not a single application was written to the Assembly before these indiscriminate allocations of spaces.

RECOMMENDATION
• A technical sub-committee, responsible for allocation of temporary structures, should be formed immediately to receive and approve applications letters for the allocations of space for temporal structures. The proposed technical sub-committee to be formed should take full charge of temporal structures in the Municipality but not an individual or any other members from anywhere outside or within the Assembly.
FINDING
• Traders to benefit from the Drainage / Gutter. By a directive from the Municipal Chief Executive traders who sell by the drainage should be the beneficiaries to the space to put their containers, but a good number of the beneficiaries are traders who are not selling by the gutter and this pose a big problem between traders who are selling on the Assembly market sheds and those to put their containers in front of their sheds. Some of the genuine questions traders raised are that, how can customers get access or see their goods? If people put containers in front of their sheds. Does the Assembly want them to give back the sheds?
RECOMMENDATION
• The proposed committee to be formed to take charge of the temporal structures should as a matter of urgency if formed, review the list of the traders who are the beneficiaries to theses spaces in order to curtail any catastrophe in the market. Much as we have been overtaking / overwhelmed by this development on the storm drain, there is still the urgent need to technically guide, supervise and monitor construction process to allow free flow of water as well as access into the drain to dislodge rubbish on regular basis.
FINDING
• Shameful extortion of Money. Another twist of the finding is what we describe as the shameful extortion of money from poor market women by a clique of officers and some members of the Assembly. The Municipal Buildings Inspector or representative (i.e. Abdullah) on one hand, and some two Assembly members on the other hand, i.e. Hon. Salifu Tamah – for Fongu Electoral Area, and Hon. Abdul Rashid Musah (a.k.a Gasper) -for Jengbeyiri Electoral Area are alleged to be directly involved in this extortion. They operate as separate teams, collecting money from these poor traders, mainly women, ranging between GHC 300 to GHC 450; and account, if at all, only GHC 100 to the Assembly. Receipts are seldom issued for cash collected, and in some cases, one person may be given a receipt for a piece of space to be shared with one or two other people who have also paid for the same piece of space. Our preliminary investigations in respect of the extortions and the issues are very distasteful. Out of 54 women who paid monies between the ranges given above sampled, only 20 of them were issued with receipts covering just GHC 100 each. The preliminary investigations also revealed that a total amount of GHC 20,330 was collected from the market women, but out of that only GHC 2,000 representing the 20 people who paid GHC 100 each was accounted to the Assembly and receipts has been issued so far to that effect. Nobody knows what happened to the balance of GHC 18,330. Receipts issued by Assembly for those who paid have not been receipt by them as at the time of these investigations.



RECOMMENDATION
• It is inhuman for us Hon. Members to start extorting the little money’s that our mothers and sisters whom we are representing in the Assembly use to trade. This committee will therefore recommend emphatically that all the money collected from these innocent traders should be refunded to the Assembly and what deem to the assembly retained and the over payment is payback to the poor traders. Also receipts should be issued to anybody who makes payments to the Assembly. Attached is a list of some of the traders who have paid so far.
FINDING
• Permit / Site plan fees. The approved fee for temporal structures is GHC 100.00 as per the fees fixing resolution. There is no recommended fee for drawing of a site plan for temporal structures. Therefore the draftsman who was on attachment two years ago and now on full time employments does the drawing and the building inspector collect the money and nothing goes to the assembly? The building inspector made this committee to believe that Hon. Tamah and Hon. Rashid collect the money from the market women and hand over to him to pay to the Assembly. When asked how much they normally collect and pay to him. The response is GHC 300.00, but most of the market women claimed that they paid amounts ranging GHC 300.00 to GHC 450.00 to the two Hon. Members. We were also made to understand that the Assembly does not procure drawing materials for the Draftsman to do the drawing; hence the GHC 200.00 charged does not go to the Assembly. The building inspector also claimed that he sometimes give the drawing of the site plan contract to various Consultancy Firms in town to execute. But applicants are always made to understand that, Permit/ Sit Plan fee is GHC 300.00 which is supposed to come to the Assembly but normally only GHC 100.00 goes to the Assembly.
RECOMMENDATION
• Management should deem it necessary to propose a figure/fee for the drawing of a site plans in the 2012 fee fixing resolution, since the Assembly is having a qualified draft man. Meanwhile in other to prevent any future diversion of money meant for the Assembly to prepare site plans elsewhere, the Assembly should stock the building inspectorate unit with the necessary drawing materials for the draftsman to do the drawing and the fees paid retained in the Assembly.


FINDING
• Computer and Accessories. The building inspectorate unit is not having a single computer to be able to carry out its work diligently and conveniently. It is always difficult to preserve and update data when collected and this poses a big challenge to them. Since the world is now controlled by technology, drawing of site plan is now done by computer every where one can think of and the building inspectorate unit is not exceptional.
RECOMMENDATION
• This committee will therefore urge management to take it as a matter of urgency to procure a computer and the associated soft ware to equip the building inspectorate unit to perform its duty well.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
The world we live today, according to Richard Paul (1995) is one – “…..In which ideas are continually restructured, retested, and rethought, where one cannot survive with simply one way of thinking, where one must continually adapt one’s thinking to the thinking of others….”
Charles Darwin is also reported to have said - Species that live today are not the best species, but those that adapt to changes.



CONCLUSION
From all indications what is happening in the market concerning the allocation of spaces for market women to put their containers on the storm drain should be a great worry to the Assembly and this committee should leave any other thing aside and look at the issues objectively in other to stop any likely pandemonium that might hit this Assembly.
Also all the money’s that went into wrong hands should be paid back to the Assembly with immediate effect. We are Honorable members and as such should not involve ourselves in such shameful acts.



…………………………………
ALHASSAN SULEMAN
F & A SUB-COMM. CHAIRMAN
020 - 7377860

…………………………….
NUHU ABDULAH
MEMBER


…………………………….
YUSSIF YAKUBU SUNGUMO
MEMBER