Minority condemns release of equipment to Ibrahim Mahama
THE Minority in Parliament has said the release of equipment to Engineers and Planners (E&P) to dredge the Korle Lagoon and the Odaw River was improper and amounts to diversion of state property to an individual because of his links to the top echelons of government.
It, therefore, called on the government to ensure that E&P, which is owned by Mr Ibrahim Mahama, a brother of President John Mahama, pays for the full cost of the machinery “improperly released to it and in its possession.”
It also urged the President to stop his family and friends from needlessly interfering in the governance of the country, whether at the local or national level.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday on decentralisation and local governance in the Mahama administration, the Minority Spokesperson on Local Government, Mr Kwasi Ameyaw Chiremeh, said per a commercial agreement between the government and GP Gunter Papenburg of Germany which was laid before Parliament in March 2014, the equipment as procured to be distributed to district assemblies, especially the newly created 46 districts.
He said it, therefore, came as a surprise to the Minority that the equipment found its way into private hands on the instructions of a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Nii Lante Vanderpuije.
Background
Mr Ibrahim Mahama, in July this year, denied reports that he had won a contract from the government to dredge the Odaw River and the Korle Lagoon.
He said on the contrary, it was his own initiative to help dredge the river.
He also said instead of letting his workers sit idle or sending them home while waiting for his next contract, he decided to dredge the river to assist the government to deal with the flood situation.
Mr Mahama told journalists during an inspection of the site of the dredging by the Chief of Staff, Mr Julius Debrah and the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Collins Dauda, that the machinery and equipment for the dredging, which were provided by the government, would be handed over after the completion of the project.
In September 2015, he announced the release of the equipment back to the government after the completion of 40 per cent of the work.
Delivery of equipment
Mr Chiremeh sought to know from the government, when the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development took delivery of the equipment and machinery and whether it actually took delivery of all the equipment as specified in the agreement.
He also sought to know where the machinery was being kept, why the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development had not distributed them quickly, as stated in its own memorandum to Parliament and why it decided to register the machinery privately.
Minister reacts
But Nii Vanderpuije, in a reaction, has described the call by the Minority as a malicious attempt to malign the integrity of the President.
According to him, the equipment as imported to be placed in a pool to service the three zones of the country, namely the northern, middle and southern sectors.
He also debunked the allegation that individual assemblies had requested the purchase of the equipment saying “there is no name of any assembly written on the equipment.”
He said it was unfortunate that a humanitarian gesture undertaken at no cost to government by E&P would be so misconstrued just because the owner is a brother of the President.
District-level elections
Mr Chiremeh, who is also the Member of Parliament for Sunyani East, observed that one month after the holding of the district-level elections, there was general quietness with no move on the part of the President to appoint not more than 30 per cent of members of the district assemblies as required by law.
“One would have thought that with the late holding of the elections, the list of government appointees would be ready even before the elections were held for the early takeoff of the assemblies.
Sanitation and waste management
He indicated that the entire nation was engulfed in filth, adding that while the attitudes and mindsets of Ghanaians were contributory factors to the insanitary conditions, the government had not done much to address the problems.
He also alleged that the government had failed to pay waste management contractors; a situation which had led to garbage mounting everywhere.
According to him, in a desperate move to address the challenge, the government had instituted a National Sanitation Day, which suggested to Ghanaians that they could create as much filth as they could and use a day to clean it up.
DACF and LESDEP
Mr Chiremeh said the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) constituted a major source of income for the assemblies, adding that unfortunately, apart from the many deductions the government caused to be effected from the DACF in the name of priority intervention programmes, it failed to release the little that was left on timely basis to the assemblies.
The failure to release the DACF, he said, affected planned programmes, increased the cost of projects and was also having a negative impact on the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).
