John Mahama
Management of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has accused ex-President John Mahama and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of COCOBOD, Dr Stephen Opuni, of using export duty payments from the board as conduit to siphon funds for activities not related to the cocoa sector.
CEO of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, made this known at a press conference on Wednesday in Accra to react to recent allegations by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority in Parliament.
“The President Mahama/Opuni tenure used export duty payments from COCOBOD as a conduit to siphon funds for activities not related to cocoa,” he said.
According to him, cocoa moneys, which were supposed to be used judiciously to improve the lives of hardworking Ghanaian farmers, were ‘secretly’ and ‘smartly’ diverted to pay unnecessary judgment debts.
“A case in point is the payment of $25 million from COCOBOD to Construction Pioneers (CP) in January 2016 to settle judgment debt awarded against the Government of Ghana in the UK,” Mr Aidoo said.
He also alleged that cocoa moneys were misappropriated in the construction of a guest house in Bole in the Northern Region, the hometown of Mr Mahama.
Holidays
“The contract for COCOBOD to construct a guest house at Bole in the Northern Region was needless at the time it was awarded,” the CEO indicated.
“President Mahama was said to have influenced the award of the contract to enable him enjoy comfortable holidays during visits to his constituency.”
Dr Opuni is currently being probed by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service for allegedly misappropriating funds during his tenure.
It has been difficult getting Dr. Opuni to respond to some allegations leveled against him so far.
Over-bloated Contracts
Mr Aidoo also alleged that there were several instances of over-bloated contracts at COCOBOD during erstwhile Mahama-led NDC administration.
“The penchant to siphon funds through inflated contracts was rampant in the NDC administration through ill-conceived construction contracts in the cocoa sector,” the CEO said.
According to him, “These contracts were awarded without proper value for money analysis, bringing into question the motive for the contracts.”
He mentioned that “the contract to construct a 50,000 metric tonne warehouse at Tema was not considered to be financially and operationally prudent at the time since COCOBOD already had enough warehousing capacity at Tema to sustain its operations into the foreseeable future.”
He observed that “the warehouse rehabilitation contract at Abuakwa in Kumasi was not required at the time since the facilities were in excellent working condition.”
“Last but not least, a whopping $24 million contract was awarded to demolish excellent staff housing quarters in Tema only to construct new housing facilities, raising several questions above the motive behind the award of the contract,” he added.
By Melvin Tarlue