Woyome Did Not Fulfill Agreement – Osafo Maafo

Yaw Osafo Maafo, former Minister for Youth and Sports, yesterday told an Accra Fast Track High Court, Financial Division, that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, failed to fulfill the condition in the agreement between him and the Ghana Government that should have led to a contract.

He told the court presided over by Justice John Ajet-Nassam in the GH¢51.28million judgment debt given to Woyome that the accused person had failed to fulfill clause 71 of the agreement signed between the Government of Ghana, Waterville and Michelletti for Waterville, which Woyome linked himself with, to provide financial engineering.

The NDC financier has been accused of causing financial loss to the state and defrauding by false pretences and but denied any wrongdoing.

The witness said this when he was continuing his examination in-chief led by chief state attorney in the case, Cynthia Lamptey, and noted that the failure of Woyome to get funding led the Government of Ghana to borrow money locally from Barclays Bank for the rehabilitation of the Accra and Kumasi Sports Stadia.

The former minister said Woyome, after getting the funding, was expected to put it in the Escrow account but that was not done, and tendered a copy of the said agreement which he said was lengthy, to the court in evidence.

The witness also observed that before the tender committee at the Ministry for Youth and Sports came out with its approval, cabinet had met on the issue at Akosombo, after which it was decided that the government should, in accordance with section 14 (8) of Act 663 of the Public Procurement Act (PPA), get a company that was capable of sole-sourcing projects for Confederations of African Cup (CAN) 2008.

In addition, Mr. Osafo Maafo tendered a gazette notification for the projects to be undertaken through sole-sourcing to the court in evidence and added that they could not write to all the companies involved when the tendering process was halted.

The former Member of Parliament (MP) for Akim Oda stated that the tender committee had no power to write to any company to tell whether or not it had won any bid and noted that even if they did, it had to be done by him.

Furthermore, the former minister said after the issue of Shanghai Construction came up, a delegation was later sent to China and it returned with a detailed report, after several meetings with Shanghai Construction who demanded water and electricity to build the new stadia at Tamale and Sekondi-Takoradi.

Explaining further, the witness said they came to an agreement that 25% of $77 million, the total amount of money to be used in building, was to be paid by the Ghana Government from the Consolidated Fund and that future payments would be based on future works done.

He noted that Michelletti was to do the construction work on the rehabilitation of the Accra Sports and El-Wak and Kumasi stadia while Waterville was the umbrella organisation to source for funding, after which it was agreed that there would be minimal breaking down of the stadia to ensure speedy rehabilitation.

The witness stated that afterwards, a precursor to the final agreement for the rehabilitation of the stadia was signed and explained that conditions on the documents included a clause which said a receipt of contract for advance payment had to be ready.

He said one of the main conditions of the precursor was that the money to be sourced by Waterville should be placed in the Escrow account but Woyome failed to get funding from its bankers in Austria called Austria Creditanstalk, leading to government borrowing money from Barclays.

Under cross-examination by Osafo Boabeng, counsel for the accused person, the witness noted that he had known Woyome since 2001 because when the New Patriotic Party came to power, Woyome had then undertaken the building of hospitals for some communities with funding from a bank in Austria.

He said they subsequently tried together to see if they could get additional funding to build more hospitals because the Austrians were apprehensive the new government would stop the projects so they gave the assurance that the projects would continue.

When asked if that could be called social engineering, he said he saw that as funding.

In response to a question on whether or not he knew that under the PPA, when a tender board submitted its approval not even the president could interfere with it, the witness explained that even before the tender committee could submit its approval, cabinet had taken the decision to approve for sole-sourcing.

Mr Osafo Maafo explained that if the board had given its approval before the tender committee had given its decision, it would have been a different matter but cabinet, which usually took decisions in the interest of the nation, took a decision that saved the nation $50million just as the PPA enjoined them to do.

The case has been adjourned to July 23, 2012.
At the last hearing, the witness said there was no contract between the government and anybody for the building of the new stadia for the African Cup of Nations (CAN) 2008.

He said it was rather the bidding process for the building of the stadia at Tamale and Sekondi-Takoradi which was stopped due to the fact that Government needed to find a company which could solely source for funds for the project.

Mr Osafo Maafo, also a former Minister of Finance and Economic Planning said, it was a bidding process because 'we didn't reach that far and had not written to anybody to say they had won any bid' for the construction of stadia.

By Fidelia Achama