Local Gov�t Ministry�s �Fraud Deal� ... PRO, Storekeeper On The Ropes!

Two workers at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development are under investigations for assisting a contractor to allegedly defraud the Ministry of an amount of 14.523 million Ghana cedis, for items not supplied. The workers, Isaac Dupey, Public Relations Officer and Musah Adoquaye, storekeeper were said to have connived with the Chief Executive Officer of AFSKEM Limited, Mr. Ekow Samuels (now deceased), to supply political maps and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembly(MMDAs) charts to the Ministry without going through the appropriate procurement process. Available information revealed that the publishers presented an invoice indicating that they had supplied a total quantity of 50,000 political maps and also 200,000 MMDA charts but upon internal investigations it came out that the suppliers only provided 600 of the MMDA charts to the Ministry�s stores. According to documents sighted, even though the supply did not go through procurement the store keeper acknowledged receipt of the items dated, 3rd June 2013, whilst the Public Relations Officer raised a memo to the then-Chief Director on the 6th June 2013, requesting for approval to purchase the items. It was further revealed that AFSKEM has had a long standing relationship with the ministry since 2008 and has allegedly monopolized the supply of materials to the Ministry through the connivance of certain individuals. Upon refusal by the Ministry to pay for the so-called items supplied since it did not go through the procurement process the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Samuels allegedly side-stepped the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and decided to deal directly with various Regional Coordinating Councils bearing in mind their long standing business relationship, the paper learnt. This, he did allegedly in connivance with the Public Relations Officer by writing to the RCC�s that the company had been instructed to provide them with the charts and maps. However, when the administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund received a letter from the company that the various MMDA�s had agreed that a certain amount of money was to be deducted from their common fund, he requested for more documents which the company was unable to provide. This prompted the administrator to inform the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) to have launched comprehensive investigations into the matter. This paper is reliably informed that EOCO has since invited all involved in the fraud for interrogation. Stay tuned