Three Guilty Former Presidents

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Call it blatant pillage and wanton dissipation of the country?s scarce resources, and you may just be within the range of describing how successive Presidents and governments led the country to incur huge losses in judgment debts since 1999, in a deal involving the state and African Automobile Limited (AAL).

Investigations by The aL-hAJJ have revealed how the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development is considering auctioning 87 long-chassis Hyundai Galloper II vehicles ordered by the then Rawlings Administration at a cost of GHC6 million for use by district assemblies in 1999 but which have been left at the mercy of the weather to rot due to pettiness.

Although the erstwhile Mills government had made some payments to African Automobile Limited as judgment debt for the Kufour administration?s refusal to honor the contractual deal between AAL and the Rawlings government, the 87 out of 110 Gallopers ordered and supplied are currently parked at the Institute of Local Government yard in Accra.

Jerry John Rawlings

Jerry John Rawlings

According to the 2011 Auditor-General?s Report, AAL was paid a judgment debt of GH?4,159,010.38 as a result of New Patriotic Party government decision not to accept liability in the contract entered into between the Local Government Ministry under the Rawlings government and the automobile company.

African Automobile Limited imported the Gallopers at the instance of the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry during the National Democratic Congress? regime in 1999.

John Agyekum Kufuor

John Agyekum Kufuor

Out of the 110 vehicles, 23 were initially delivered and paid for by the Rawlings administration before the government exited office in January 2001.

The remaining 87 vehicles arrived in 2001 during the Kufuor administration which refused to take custody of the vehicles citing some irregularities pertaining to contract documents on the vehicles among other reasons.

The action of the Kufuor government resulted in a claim of $1.5 billion made by AAL as judgment debt in court, which result; the Mills government was compelled to engage the company for an out-of-court settlement. The remaining 87 Gallopers have since been parked at the Institute of Local Government (ILG) yard all these years.

Meanwhile, latest information gathered by The aL-hAJJ indicate that the present awful state of the Gallopers is pushing the Local Government Ministry under the Mahama-led administration to clear off the vehicles from the ILG yard after 13 years of indecision, and at a great cost to the tax payer.

Reports are that the Ministry is in the process of clearing all the legal bottlenecks surrounding the rotten vehicles and put it to public auction.

John Mahama John Mahama

When contacted, the Minister of Local Government, Julius Debrah, said he has instructed the Ministry?s lawyers to brief him on the state of the 87 vehicles based on which he said ?action would be taken.?

?I have asked the lawyers to look for the files covering the vehicles and brief me on it. After the briefing, the Ministry will decide on what to do with them?but looking at the number of years the vehicles have been parked there, we would first have to asses if they can still be used. If we found out that the state would have to incur extra cost to put them to use then the best thing I think we would do is to auction them,? he stated.

John Evans Atta Mills John Evans Atta Mills

This is not the first time a state asset has been left to rot. When the Kufuor government ascended the reigns of governance in 2001, it left a Gulfstream III the Rawlings administration bought in 2000 at a cost of US$20 million on the tarmac at the Kotoka International airport.

Just as in the case of the Gallopers, the presidential jet was subsequently valued at $1million and pawned as scrap with the Chinese government by the NPP administration.

Source: The Al-Hajj

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