5 Publishers demand payment for supply of atlases
The Ghana Book Publishers Association (GBPA) has issued a one-week ultimatum to the government to pay the $32 million it owes five of its members for the supply of atlases to schools across the country in 2011 or face legal action.
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It said after its dialogue with the government had failed to yield any results, it had no option but to resort to legal means to retrieve the money on behalf of the five members.
The five members are Approachers Ghana Limited, Winmat Publishers Limited, Adwinsa Publications Ghana Limited, SEDCO Publishing Limited and EPP Books.
The Executive Secretary of the GBPA, Mr Fauna Frimpong, told the Daily Graphic that in 2009, the five companies won a tender for the supply of the atlases to schools in the country at a cost of $35 million.
The contract
He said the companies were asked to pre-finance the supply of the atlases, which they did with loans contracted from local banks, and by 2011, the five companies had met all their obligations under the agreement.
However, after the supply of the atlases, all efforts the members made for the payment of their money yielded no results and the Ministry of Finance had not treated the issue with any seriousness.
Moves to retrieve money
On June 28, 2013, he said, after the GBPA had sought the intervention of the Ministry of Education, the Chief Director of the ministry wrote a letter to the administrator of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to release 90.7 per cent of the amount to the companies.
The GETFund, however, released only 18 per cent of the amount.
A copy of that letter has been made available to the Daily Graphic.
Mr Frimpong also said one of the cheques issued to one of the companies for the payment, which bore the insignia of the Bank of Ghana, was dishonoured.
On November 5, 2013, the GBPA wrote to the Ministry of Education and urged it to act with dispatch and ensure that the companies were paid as quickly as possible. However, he said nothing positive had resulted from that instruction.
A copy of that letter also has been made available to the Daily Graphic.
Mr Frimpong said the loans contracted from the banks by the five companies attracted five per cent interest per month and added that the 18 per cent of the value of the contract paid to the publishing companies could only offset the interest accrued on the amount owed the financial institutions.
“The principal is still outstanding. As I speak, the companies have not paid their printers. And what is worse, these publishing companies have started laying off their workers because they are unable to pay them,” he said.
Ultimatum
“We think we have given the government enough time and if we do not hear anything positive within a week, we will go to court to retrieve our money. We will not seek to retrieve only what we are owed; we will also ask for interest on the amount,” he added.
GETFund’s reaction
The Public Relations Manager of the GETFund, Mr Stephen Baffoe, reacting to the GBPA threat, said the fund could only pay the association from its coffers but lamented that currently, payment into the fund was 11 months in arrears.
“So it is not as if we have the money and we do not want to pay them. We have our own difficulties,” he said.
He explained that money went into the fund as and when the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), through the Ministry of Finance, declared how much had been collected and paid the money into the account.
Mr Baffoe also said the board of directors of the GETFund had begun discussions with officials of the Ministry of Finance who had promised to release some money into the account soon.
“As soon as they do, we will meet the GBPA halfway,” he promised.
