Massive looting, conflict of interest allegations rock STMA

Isaac Yeboah Politics Jul - 22 - 2013 , 07:48

Captain Anthony Cudjoe (Rtd), Metropolitan Chief Executive for the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis

An attempt by some officials of the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) to outsmart a contractor has led to the exposure of massive corruption and conflict of interest at the assembly.

It has emerged that top officials of the STMA, who were also members of the tender committee have formed companies and were awarding contracts running into millions of cedis to themselves.

What is worrying also, they use the assembly’s resources to execute the projects and then proceed to bill the cost of fueling the state machinery to the assembly.

The deals were uncovered in investigations by the Daily Graphic which witnessed, in one instance, the closure of an office of a telecom company by one of the source companies contracted by the STMA, Febro Ltd to be in charge of revenue collection of outdoor billboards branding.

Soon after Febro Ltd billed the telecom company with an amount of GHȻ410,000.00 being arrears from 2011 to 2013, some officials of the assembly went to negotiate the levy from GHȻ410,000 to GHȻ12,000 on December 5, 2012 and issued a receipt to that effect by the Metro Finance Directorate.

As a result the STMA lost a whopping GHȻ398,000.00 in revenue, while the GHȻ12,000 could not be accounted for.

Angry members of the assembly are therefore calling for an immediate probe into the operations of the STMA as well as all 58 contracts awarded since 2011. They also want to know who were contracted to execute the projects.

They alleged that some officials use their positions to award school projects, roads and other rehabilitations contracts to themselves and pocketed huge monies that came from government, GETFund and development partners to finance those projects.

The developments, according to the assembly members, have resulted in serious financial difficulties for the assembly.

When the Daily Graphic team contacted the Metropolitan Chief Executive for the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, Captain Anthony Cudjoe (Rtd) welcomed the call for a probe and said measures would be taken immediately to address all the issues. (More to follow).