Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni is calling on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to prevail upon his Minister of Justice and Attorney General to prosecute cases of alleged fraudulent payments in the fumigation scandal involving Zoomlion, a subsidiary of the Jospong Group of Companies.
According to Manasseh Azure Awuni, Zoomlion and its sister companies were paid over 200 million Cedis without evidence of the execution of fumigation contracts allegedly awarded them. He stated that though evidence which establishes a prima facie case of illegal payment to the companies has been submitted to the Attorney General by the police, the office of the AG has failed to pursue the case.
He therefore wants the President to direct the office of the Attorney General to pursue the matter to its logical conclusion in the law court.
“I want to use this opportunity to appeal to the President to prevail on the Minister of Justice and Attorney General to prosecute the fumigation scandal. More than 200 million Cedis was found to have been paid to Zoomlion and its sister companies without evidence of work done. Those who awarded the contract could not provide any justification for paying the money.
The police submitted a docket to the Attorney General over a year ago, but nothing has happened. Through an appeal from the Auditor-General, I worked with the police and I know that a first year law student can secure conviction with the enormous evidence that has been built into the docket,” he stated.
Waste management company, Zoomlion, was awarded multiple contracts by different government agencies including the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Local Government and the various metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives(MMDCEs) to undertake similar fumigation exercise in all Districts, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies (MMDAs) across the country.
The company was first engaged by the Ministry of Health to undertake the fumigation exercise in all MMDAs in 2009. In 2010, another contract was allegedly awarded to the company to undertake a similar exercise, the cost of which was to be borne by the MMDAs even though the earlier contract was still in force. Between 2014 and 2017, the Ministry of Local Government allegedly awarded a similar fumigation contract which was to be done in the same assemblies alongside the earlier two contracts.
JoyNews’s investigation by Manasseh Azure Awuni discovered that the waste management company had only executed a single contract though unsatisfactorily but received payment from the different agencies of state for the three separate contracts.
The matter was referred to the office of the Attorney-General(AG) for further probe and prosecution but the AG had claimed that evidence presented to it by Mr. Manasseh Azure Awuni was insignificant to sustain a prosecution in the law court.
But Mr. Azure Awuni dismissed the AG’s claims pointing to findings by the Financial Forensic Unit of the Ghana Police Service which, he said, corroborated his allegations and that of the Auditor General which described the payment as “fraud” and has caused the disallowance of over 184 million Ghana cedis paid to Zoomlion by the Ministry of Health, a decision which the company appealed against but lost.
