This is pure stealing! (2)

Ti-Kelenkelen

Osikani Yaw

These days it is common knowledge that if you see an abandoned road project, especially one undertaken by a Ghanaian contractor, the possible reason is one of only two.  Either the state does not have the money to continue paying for it, or the contractor had to pay bribes to so many public officials from the first tranche of money (called mobilization) he/she was given that none was left to do the project.  And so although the contractor had put out his equipment on a part of the road to do the work, the amount of money runs out and he or she also abandons the project, puts what little amount (of the mobilisation) that is left in his/her pocket and walks away.

Two interesting points emerge here.  One, the critical observer would tell you that in reality the two possibilities could come hand in hand: Roads and Highways could provide mobilisation for starting the project, but may not add more soon enough.  Two, there is a long line of public officials, including politicians, who took bribes from the mobilisation tranche, and among them are those who by duty must enforce the terms of the contract and ensure the right thing is done.  Since they took bribe however, none of them has the moral courage to order the arrest of the absconded contractor and/or compel him to go on site and continue the project.

To continue the project in future, if it ever comes to that, a new contract is signed and the state is charged all over again for something for which it has already paid substantial sums of cash.  I tell you, Dear Reader, you have no idea of how many millions of new cedis Ghana loses through such bribery plus abandoned projects each year; it is gargantuan.

And it gets worse.  Go to any ministry or district office where road contracts are given and ask for the list of persons offered such contracts.  Conduct checks on the backgrounds of those listed and you would realise that more than half are not road contractors at all and after that one may never do a road contract again.  They are simply cronies of public officials, and once they have the contract they look for a proper road construction company to do the job.

The stated, approved cost of the project is either triple or quadruple the actual charge of the contract as per contemporary salaries of professional, artisans and labourers; the prices of commodities and logistics; the charges of commodities to be hired; etc.  Still, there is such a long line of public officials to bribe that the contractor, even when he/she completes the project, ends up with about less than a tenth of the total amount (approved cost) the state paid for it.

And the line of public officers who receive the bribes usually starts with a minister, persons in his/her office; the chief director of the ministry, sector director, persons in their offices, and; the ministry clerks who worked on the documentation of the contract.  Not invariably, those paid from the cost of the project include political party persons, and always, always, some of the money must go into the coffers of the political party in national administration.

Dear Reader may recall many years ago the disclosure by then NPP National Party Chairman, Haruna Esseku, that contractors sent to the (Kufuor) Castle, Osu, money they were supposed to pay into party coffers.  Among the NDC, such anti-state practice is more acceptable; indeed, it is so acceptable it appears it in their collective genes.

With the project money under pressure from so many sources other than the work itself, the contractor is compelled to cut so many corners that the finished project is nothing but shoddy work.  And so a road that must have say two layers of (3 inch) macadam ends up with two layers; a road that must be a second-class road ends up as a third-class road or even a parody of it.

And I tell you, if all roads are constructed as stated in the contracts using just half of the approved cost, those roads should last thirty years. In reality, however, many roads begin to develop potholes in less than three years of construction.  I recall in 1993/4 the Western Region chairman of the NDC, Owuo Agyeman, was given a contract to construct a substantial portion of the very long Kumasi-Sefwi Wiawso-Juabuso highway.  Portions he finished in June had started developing potholes by September – three months later.

Another Angle

Another source of corruption that many may not have thought about is in the area of international road contracts.  All the water to be used for the project is budgeted for; so are the gravels.  But where the contractor uses water from a nearby river and breaks up a nearby hill to make the gravels for the first class project, where does all the money budgeted for those items go?  Properly, it must be paid to the Consolidated Fund and the coffers of District Assembly(s) in whose territory the gravel and water are taken from.  But investigations show those amounts of money, millions of dollars, go into the pockets of top politicians who leave some for the contractor.

While politicians are leading contriving/collaborating civil workers and private persons to rip the state off, they completely forget they are in public office because the state, the people, the owners of the country, have employed them to take care of everyone’s welfare.  When asked why cost of living is rising and standard of living is falling, those politicians cite reasons, including global economic crisis, yet those same reasons have never been grounds for politicians to reduce the comfort they enjoy on “wonna monnie.”

“Ex-refinery differential”

Ti-Kelenkelen has stated all the above to show how dangerously close we are to consigning ourselves to the rubbish heap of history, because our elite are gradually imbibing this dangerous social canker that it is okay for public officials to steal public funds as long as they share it among their cronies, hangars-on, party apparatchiks, close associates who are journalists, bottle-breaking companions, etc.  The contrary is what we have christened “adidigya,” where politicians and their cronies steal state funds, but keep it to and chop it amongst themselves.

It is in such an atmosphere that the Mills administration slapped onto the prices of petroleum fuels what they call “ex-refinery differentials.”  And Ghanaians must thank my friend, Kweku Kwarteng of the NPP, and a resident of Tamale who is an official of an agency called Development Data, Abdul Ganiyu, for taking up the matter on behalf of Ghanaians in an Accra High Court.

In 2009, when the Mills administration, through the National Petroleum Authority (NPA,) made the highest increases in the prices of petroleum fuels it has made till date, it set it according to a formula (structure) set and approved by Parliament, but that was not all.  The Mills administration/NPA also slapped onto the prices an unapproved item not stated in the formula.  They called the unapproved item “ex-refinery differential,” and they put it on the price of specific fuels before sending the final figures to the oil marketing companies (OMCs) who then asked their fuel stations to charge the final amounts.

The amounts of the “ex-refinery differential” are as follows:

On diesel fuel they put 95 pesewas per gallon

Super Petrol, 29 pesewas/gallon

Kerosene, 42 pesewas/gallon

Gas (LPG,) 8 pesewas/gallon, and

MGL Local, 69 pesewas/gallon.

If you put the amounts together the total is GH¢2.43 (¢24,300.00,) and any time Ghanaians buy a million gallons of each of the fuels listed above, the Mills administration collects GH¢2,430,000.00 (¢24.3 billion,) but the money does not go into the Consolidated Fund, where all Ghana’s money goes.  Before the two young men went to court, therefore, Kwarteng was on an Accra-based radio station, Citi FM, and questioned where the amount accruing from the “ex-refinery differentials” are going.

When citizens dupe each other or steal from each other, it is up to the victims to activate the justice system to recover their lost funds/resources.  However, if national administration through a state agency steals (or misappropriates) monies from the people, it is we the people who must be agitated and outraged, and demand that the culprits be brought before a judge, taken through due process and punished, while the monies are recovered and lodged into the Consolidated Fund.

What the High Court said

In September 2010, Kweku Kwarteng and Abdul Ganiyu went to the High Court stating that the “ex-refinery differential,” since it is not part of the formula approved by Parliament, is illegal.  They thus prayed the court to describe it as such (in addition to other reliefs they were seeking.)

A year on, on Monday, November 28, 2011, the High Court agreed that, indeed, the charges are “illegal.” and thus ordered the National Petroleum Corporation to remove “the illegal margins disguised as ‘ex-refinery differential’ from the prices of each of the [petroleum fuels.”]

Consequently, the Court also ordered the NPA to announce new (lower) fuel prices, where the price of each must be a new one minus the “ex-refinery differential” placed on it.

According to a Daily Guide report, “The High Court further ordered the NPA to publish the total amount accrued from the imposition of the illegal margins in the Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times within four months from the date [of delivery] of the judgement…”  The High Court also ordered the NPA, “to pay the accrued amount, [which according to Development Data totalled GH¢690 million from June 5, 2009 to November 29, 2011,] into the Consolidated Fund.”

Highlight

“Ti-Kelenkelen has stated all the above to show how dangerously close we are to consigning ourselves to the rubbish heap of history, because our elite are gradually imbibing this dangerous social canker that it is okay for public officials to steal public funds as long as they share it among their cronies, hangars-on, party apparatchiks, close associates who are journalists, bottle-breaking companions, etc.  The contrary is what we have christened “adidigya,” where politicians and their cronies steal state funds, but keep it to and chop it amongst themselves.”