The Local Government and Rural Development Committee of Parliament has raised concerns over the continued theft of undocumented equipment supplied to assemblies under the District Road Improvement Programme (DRIP), describing the losses as a waste of public funds.
Citing reported thefts involving four assemblies, the committee said the absence of proper documentation and insurance made it difficult to trace stolen machines and recover the state’s investment.
“The failure to document and insure the equipment has exposed the state to avoidable financial losses, as the absence of records makes it difficult to identify and recover stolen machines,” it said last Friday.
Stolen concrete mixers
The committee’s Chairperson, Queenstar Pokua Sawyerr, raised the concern after several assemblies that appeared before it during the two-week public hearing reported the theft of undocumented and uninsured DRIP machines.
“Now, there is no documentation for the DRIP machines in the whole of Ghana, and so if somebody steals them, what happens to the assembly?
“This is huge public investment that is going to waste at our assemblies”, she said.
She and other committee members, particularly, were dismayed to hear that four concrete mixers valued at more than GH¢800,000 had been stolen from the Sagnarigu Municipal Assembly in the Northern Region.
Difficult to trace
The Municipal Coordinating Director, Mahmoud M. Osman, told the committee the four machines, each valued at more than GH¢200,000, were taken from the yard of the Urban Roads Department, which is close to the police headquarters, during the violence that followed the 2024 general election.
He said the assembly had reported the incident to the police but had yet to receive a report to establish the whereabouts of the equipment.
Mr Osman explained that the machines were difficult to trace because they were supplied to the assembly by the District Assembly Common Fund without the necessary documentation.
“When the machines were given to the assembly, there were no accompanying documents,” he said.
Not the first time
The disclosure prompted Mrs Sawyerr to question how the machines could have been removed from the Urban Road’s premises without being intercepted, particularly when the location was close to police headquarters.
She expressed concern that the equipment might have been distributed to assemblies without the necessary documentation because of the urgency surrounding its deployment during the election campaign.
“This is where politics comes in because those machines were brought hurriedly for campaign sake and they did not bring documents,” she said..
The MP for Agona East, however, assured that the committee would compile a list of all the assemblies that had reported missing DRIP equipment and consider appropriate measures to address the situation and prevent further losses to the state.
Insurance and accountability
The Deputy Ranking Member of the Committee, Alexander Akwasi Acquah, urged the committee to take a keen interest in ensuring that all components of the DRIP equipment supplied to the assemblies were well insured.
He called for a comprehensive audit to establish the status of the equipment and determine the extent of insurance coverage, suggesting that the Common Fund, which supplied the machines, should be involved.
Liaise with DACF
The Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), Conrad Dumbah, said the major risk associated with the DRIP equipment was the absence of proper documentation, which had compromised the ability of assemblies to trace missing machines.
He, therefore, urged assemblies to liaise with the DACF and equipment suppliers to retrieve the original documentation, including the vehicle identification numbers (VINs), to address the documentation gaps centrally.
