Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has disqualified former Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah from holding any public office for a period of five years for acts of fraud and corruption resulting in financial loss of GH¢8,971,933.43 to the state.
This follows investigations into a contract awarded to three companies – Ronor Motors Limited, Sajel Motors Limited and Telino Ghana Limited for the supply of vehicles to the GRA.
The Commission has also referred him and Directors of the three companies to the Attorney General for possible prosecution and recovery of the lost funds.
The investigations were initiated by a petition filed by Movement for Truth and Accountability, a civil society organisation which had found that the contract was laced with fraud and irregularities.
The Commission, at the end of its investigation, made some startling findings, including the fact that the three companies did not have the capacities to meet the terms of the contract.
Interestingly, it found that Sajel Motors Limited and Telino Ghana Limited had no physical locations and could not be traced to the addresses provided by them in all their correspondences at the time of the contract.
It said the two companies “in fraudulent circumstances entered into separate contracts with Ronor Motors for the supply of the same vehicles to the GRA,” although Ronor Motors was single-sourced for the supply of the vehicles and logistics.
According to CHRAJ, Dr. Owusu-Amoah misled the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) in approving the request of GRA to award the contracts to the three companies using single source procurement method in dubious circumstances.
The Commission found that “the blatant disregard for procurement rules and regulations, fraudulent misrepresentations as well as the lack of due diligence in selecting a supplier for the supply of goods deemed urgent goes against the duty to exercise sound judgment in making procurement decisions imposed on the Respondent under section 18(3)(e) of Act 663.”
It further held that both the act of disregarding the procurement rules and the omission to exercise due diligence in the selection of the three companies have been done to purposely result in the illicit enrichment of these companies to the detriment of the state, amounting to corruption.
The Commission also found that at the material time of contract – October 2021, the three (3) companies were unqualified to be engaged for any public procurement because they had no evidence to show that they had fulfilled their obligations to pay taxes and social security contributions.
“The evidence adduced on their behalf to show they were Tax and SSNIT compliant were either issued after the contracts were awarded or had expired by the date of the contract,” the report indicated.
Again, CHRAJ found that having regard to their specifications and bulk purchase, the prices at which vehicles were procured from Ronor Motors Limited were inflated as TGCL from whom Ronor Motors purchased a majority of the vehicles from for the onward delivery to GRA had better price quotations which were indeed more advantageous than Ronors Motors’.
The finding also pointed out that the impugned companies were unable to duly fulfil their contractual obligations simply because they did not possess the requisite capacity to carry out the contract of such magnitude and not because of disruptions in the supply chain owing to the COVID-19 pandemic as alleged by Dr. Owusu-Amoah.
CHRAJ also found that as at the date of the complaint, the three companies had not paid in full the required taxes on the vehicles and other logistics supplied to GRA.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak