Newsfile on Joy News (14-8-21)

[Music] good morning and welcome to news file this is your most authoritative news analysis platform and as we do always here we put ghana first the sputnik v probe in parliament and matas are rising the 2.4 million dollars that was at stake and recommended by the parliamentary adhoc committee to be refunded or recovered has reportedly been refunded so it is back to chest from sheikh al maktoum there's been a major cry clamor for the health minister to resign that looks like an opportunity for a good exit will he resign or rather be sacked which many people will rather avoid it doesn't appear that will ever happen because the president thinks the man has suffered in your hands he says that jovially jokingly but people take exception to that joke he's rather been giving two weeks leave so is that the end of the story do you think your continued protests will yield anything from the president is this a sign of bad governance on the part of this president that in the midst of the overwhelming cause for the minister to either resign or be sacked he still has a job the finance minister says we should be compassionate why don't you want to be compassionate with the minister some have said he's been candid when he was being proved he admitted his wrongs and promise not to do that again we will be talking about the 200 million dollar saglim housing project is that the usual chop chop exposed or the usual partisan smear campaign activated against colleen's dada and his associates or those he worked with don't go anywhere we'll be right back to deal with the vex matters yeah welcome back this is news file it's your most authoritative news analysis platform and here on news file as always we put ghana first and here's my take these must be troubling it must be troubling when a teacher allegedly threatened with sanctions for a conduct in public by his association or the ghana education service when they take exception to what he does in public he boldly announces that he's happy to leave the classroom because his 1500 city salary does not cover even his transportation cost for the month this must be troubling it must be troubling when university teachers who have been fighting for better conditions for a decade now are ambushed with an injunction and told to call of a strike for which they had given a whole month's notice to the employer the supports independence labor commission habitat which is said to have ignored this notice for a whole month without even acknowledging it suddenly saw the need to call utak for a meeting and while it is calling for the meeting at the same time it was in court seeking an injunction on their blind side the man who runs the commission who obviously is giving a car plus several other benefits and ends far more than a professor's 5 000 or less monthly salary took them to the court presided over by a privileged article 71 office holder judge who is looking to a huge pay rise compared to the four percent hike for public servants it must be troubling when the courts often do not treat such injunction applications but slightly predisposed to demand to see the affected party before making a decision seems to almost always grant the supposed independent habitat these injunctions without any question so this must be troubling two thieves said to have stolen some fifty thousand ghana cities plus mobile phones are reported to have been dealt 15 years we know many bigger thieves who still brought their lights by the stroke of the pen mightier than a gun in these circumstances where a hospital would have been built to save lives they deprive a whole village of that service they appear before a court and don't get anything close to 15 years that's what members of the public are asking tell them about your laws and the differences in the charges and that one is robbery and one is not robbery they have no understanding what you are talking about all they know is that a poor person stole 50 ghana cities has gone to jail 15 years they know a big man politician stole millions in dollars may not go to jail at all when they appear before the court they get bail that these poor people may never get bail even when they are increasing we may be told that they are sick and somehow get some conditions that help them but these poor people die in their sickness in jail state-owned enterprises have for many years they don't post any profits they are posting losses and yet the people who manage them still have their jobs we have the political general support that i am getting very sick and tired of reading that tells us the loot broad day loot that occurs in public office and almost nothing happened to the people there in the course of this week the media has been serializing aspects of the auditor general's report how do you feel hearing about the colossal sums that are unaccounted for somebody has stolen people who are led to have taken double salary for years and it does appear nothing may happen to them unfortunately at this time it is only the opposition who sees these wrongs as wrongs but the people in government majority of them will continue to put up a defense and not see anything wrong this must be troubling that's my take we'll be right back to get you to know my guests and the issues we are canvassing for you this show is brought to you by bank of africa strong as a group and close as a partner mtn everywhere you go a chassis university educating ethical and entrepreneur leaders for africa robert and sons seeing is believing where lead home is where one starts from star assurance your solid partner euro plus where euro plus goes water flows dbs industries and md auto trading official distributors of mg vehicles in ghana we'll be right back yeah welcome back this is news file it's your most authoritative news analysis platform and here on news file as always we put ghana first i'm something laddie and are privileged to be hosting my very good friends and here in the studio alexander kamina afino marking who is the majority leader in parliament and a deputy majority leader in parliament and mp for two thank you for making the time maybe it's a prophecy majority leader you know before the leadership of parliament was constituted we sat here and we prophesied and he's the deputy majority leader um also here in the studio is martin pebble he's a rights activist and he is a lawyer joining us via zoom martin good morning morning morning right joining us via zoom kofi bento is a lawyer and senior vice president imani africa also sami sami jamfi is national communications officer the national democratic congress ndc and harry yamsen fellow solidar ghana and soldier ghana is a think tank dedicated to promoting left-of-center views on governance pro-people policy and efficient and effective policy implementation and evaluation thank you gentlemen for making the time to join us via zoom thank you samsung and good morning good morning good morning all right so um let's uh just take a little peek into a few of the developments in the course of the week things are happening rather very fast leading to an eventual refund of the 2.4 million dollars in respect of the controversial sputnik v vaccine procurement and the minister kokodaman menu has gotten a two weeks leave of absence let's let's watch and listen to these quickly and return to the studio we had a period in which we had gotten close to a million astrazeneca investments which have been sort of well administered and deployed and had very little left and then we had on the second business coming up so we were really forced to to look at you know how to get some new builders into the system and i think we agreed to [Music] one 300 000 transactions in terms of ethnic um uh it could make the scenes which we did and i think the the ministry of health was looking at maybe another million um weapons but really that one is on tradition that we don't um um get the the um astrazeneca as uh johnson and johnson or fisa uh in the interim period i mean what i have is uh 300 000 vaccines uh that we have [Music] and that means that as as you're saying you you so far only paid for 300 000 sputnik vaccines through the through the shake in the dubai correct but those are paid at the price of of 19 per dose right we said lc to do that let me confirm on good authority that indeed [Music] the payment has been made the refund has been made to me the major concern of ghanaian in all of these was possible financial laws mistakes the minister like i said in my debate was sincere and candid in everything he did information flow to us written evidence to us and all of that this goes to confirm that the minister did not lie when he said at all material times he knew he was dealing with a credible entity and this flows from one the letter they wrote saying that they could not supply the rest and the fact that they were willing to refund their unsupply doses today by the grace of god the funds have fully landed in their accounts of government with banks people have had all the trust to this whole thing the minister has been at the receiving end because even statement of fact that he made for some convenient people decided to twist it but this is public service this is politics but he's in firm and been consistent in everything regarding this whole situation and today we have the funds back if you ask me whether or not the committee would have any further action to take i would say no regarding our recommendation we stated that he should still the mini the ministry of finance should take to take steps to seek refund of the difference but the miniature of god rather consistent with it earlier i respond to her has been proactive in ensuring that it is done and today it closes the matter and all those things i see no it's not a thief we don't know that they constitute criminal offenses we know but we're just thinking that why don't you go first then let's have some super reflections and see whether his plea that it was his quest to save lives that caused him to do what he did should be sufficient to stop a criminal prosecution or we should go ahead because evan look the public the financial management act has some new set of offenses apart from the conventional costing financial loss even right now if you sign a contract and that contract creates an obligation for government to pay money that act a low so that is when you don't follow due process and you sign the contract which commits government that alone is an offense for the treasury the fire the doctor is growing bigger by the day oh it turned out that he he was the one who approached the i mean that's a ministry they are pretty sick yeah this man came out and said it was the that approached the ministry so one lie then another one he stated that he had tried government to government government to government so that is to say to contact the russian foreign ministry it was when all his diligent efforts filled that he decided to deal with the sheik's office right so you have been listening to a number of people who have been speaking you had the president president akofudo making reference to the minister of health who has suffered like i mentioned earlier well he may have been making that in a setting you know context as uh cracking a joke but there are some who uh take exceptional exception to that because they say these are not matters that um you know should be used for if you like in making seeing things in jest you had the finance minister keno it was the first foreign had he was giving an interview to the norwegian norwegian journalist on the payments that have been made uh in respect of the contract and this is the norwegian journalist who [Music] brought things to the attention of this country and journalists in this country also began to follow the issues leading eventually to parliament an adult committee being set up for investigations that led to the report that we presently have you also had affair marking talking about the money that has uh been paid back then you heard martin pebble also uh speaking about the fact that the payments that must not be the end to the issue so what let me begin with um let me get coffee bento for these gentlemen who are sitting right by me we have heard them over and again uh but they obviously would uh speak today in a way that may be a bit different from what you have heard them before coffee i read your message that you uh shared with us on the show last week and as far as you are concerned this was a very clear case where the minister shouldn't be allowed to continue to be in office having followed what has gone on so far and the fact that the money has been refunded what will you be saying and this is what you said in your text which we shared with our viewers the last time you said number one he must be made to return the money of course that was the central recommendation by the committee number two he must be made to face the law in parliament for perjury and also criminally for causing financial loss and breaching procurement law and three he must be sucked this is not his first procurement scandal there are others such as snake serum and medical software running into about 100 million if we can't deal with such open bridges we will collapse this nation yeah something so um all that is still true let me just put it this way again if the minister is subject to the laws of ghana he will not be home samson if you and i took 50 000 cities of government money and treated it this way and broke all the rules we will not be home this is not about the person of the minister this is about building a nation something i believe you are alive i was clearly alive when president rollins as a young man slam young man angry young man got a couple of other young men and overthrew the government of this country and all he said was that the leaders of this country were ripping it apart samson people were shocked in this country for far less i am not asking for us to do that i was part of the struggle that brought us back this constitution 1991 i remember all the things and before me there were fighters you know a dubai culture of silence what i want to say is that we have gone through a history to come where we are and to establish the rule of law and constitutional governance but we have over the past 20 something years slipped into situations worse than what we used to experience which is why i made a point that if we can't deal with blatant open breaches of law and we clearly are running a country where there are two sets of laws there are ordinary people's law and there is powerful people's law and there are people in jail today for doing far less if the law the procurement law if the establishment of the special prosecutor and we went through all of this and this is exactly the reason why we put up all these arguments and went through years of work to establish the special prosecutor the point was that sometimes you have people committing crimes in office and the ag is not able to bring them to law because he is part of a cabinet where the other people also are and the more efficient goes unpunished and it creates a situation where these things repeat themselves samson you remember what we did on occupy flagstaff house work we did establishing occupy ghana what we did with the auditor general establishing the rules on surcharge and disallowance going to court still trying to tighten this thing samson god has saved this country many times from all kinds of situations because some of the places that we get to people don't get there and they end up in civil wars so i am not saying this is about one person it is about whether we as a country want to have a country where everybody is subject to the law and we are going to be honest about these things okay and then also we are going to have a situation where people think to advice before people's money and push them anyhow right i believe athenian market if he says that the money has been returned but i have no evidence of that and if in this same situation people told us things that were likes clear proven likes who has the proof that this money has been returned and i'm saying it may have been returned but i won't be surprised if it turns out it has not been returned so i worry about what we are trying to do and trying to create a situation where some people are clearly above the law and you know um it's not again like somebody wants somebody to be punished but when these things are taken as a joke all right i'm telling you there is anger out there there is anger out there yeah yeah yeah yeah but mommy has worked free with our money right okay and now anytime i hear will meet them so wham is 51 million 51 million just about 10 million dollars then they start citing things we are running into hundreds of millions of dollars okay under this situation so are we building a nation or what are we trying to do yeah so look i worry about these things and i ask myself have we achieved anything at all and then i asked myself there is a generation that does not appreciate what we went through to restore constitutional democracy there is a generation that did not see people stripped naked and whipped in the streets there's a generation that does not understand what it means when people's fathers were picked from home and they didn't return there's a generation that does not understand how people were tied to stakes and shots i lived a hundred meters from former dr bouzier's house and they were they put commandos there and every week you hear gunshots they constituted themselves into a court they could do whatever they wanted nobody could do anything about them we came very close to civil wars in this country it is the grace of god that caused some of these schools and things that were trying you know not to succeed and in one case they succeeded they took over so so so my point is let me learn my point is that we need to be careful because democracies are fragile things and when we go on these dungeons we give some people a lot of energy to overthrow what we have now that is the way i'm looking at this so we every everybody may have one concern or the other looking at issues generally i i started with my take looking at a few things around in the course of the week and asking a number of questions about them because i get worried myself where i mention these guys who are going to jail for 15 years for stealing a mobile phone and 50 ghana cds yes they'll get they'll be in jail and they're rotting there um well a politician is still millions and then when they are locked up if if they happen to be locked up they may get presidential pardoning they get out of jail but is it right to to generalize this issue to put this issue in that general picture as you have just done can this issue not be isolated and look at it for what it is that there is no proof or evidence of any wrong motive or as it were a corrupt motive and in the end like a failure marking has been saying in the course of this week the money is back in chest to chest so what's the big deal the big deal is that when you ask for proof of motive it is not required in this situation there has been actors rules actions and you ask what else is required you have a situation where there was the mainstream seen in terms of a mindset because the gentleman went to parliament saw an oath and then said things that he knew were not true the gentleman is an accountant and you know that when you are of a certain standard where you are expected to know more you are not giving the excuse or even any benefit that will come from doubt he knows the rules he's been chairman of parliament accounts committee so he knows about processes we have to go into he knows the laws going through this and an emergency like um covet does not immobilize those rules and indeed there were sufficient arrangements around this by which he could have gotten what he wanted without breaking a rule samson if you are asked which rule was not broken in this situation all of them so my question would be under what do we make an exception to this and then i'll say again this is exactly the textbook and act this is exactly the reason why we were pushed by the development partners to institute our law against causing financial loss and there have been amendments to that law we have a situation now where we are charging people for cycling and there are other charges on the books and anybody can look at the two situations and ask what is the difference so again my issue is not with a specific person and trying to seek to do anything you know to him or anything i worry about whether we are building a country where the rule of law applies to everybody that i also worry about people who subsequently feel emboldened and not feel any risk to take our money and treat it in it there are other citizens who think like the the finance minister thinks like athenian will think there are other citizens and the journalists are spoken to them they are spoken you know through the media to all of us to hear there are others who say they may be in the minority from what we have heard but they say is it not worth it is it not something worth counting on that in situations where you would have seen some politicians lie of course we have seen too many of those situations they just lie their face like they tell it even under committees but in this case he was sort of he was contrite at heart he he pleaded he said look i i got it wrong here but it won't happen again please forgive me some say like you know jesus said when they brought the woman before her him and accused her of um you know adultery says if you can't throw the stone if you think you are right so some are saying that and asking who doesn't make mistakes he makes mistakes he admits them why are we saying he should be crucified what do you say to those people well i'll say that i also feel the same way we all make mistakes there are mistakes and there are mistakes and when you make a mistake as in i did not know and i didn't do this it happened and it was for you i couldn't have controlled it that is one kind of mistake another one is only called a mistake when you sign a piece of paper and the facts on which you sign them are clear clearly you knew what you had done and then you come around and say i never did this when you actually commit and pay state funds and then you come around and say i did not pay it okay when you claim that i tried to reach the government and i was not successful but it turns out that you never tried to reach any government and that you went straight and bought this thing from that person it is a mistake when you go to the right place and you are scammed it is not a mistake when you go to somebody who has had a history of underhand dealings and has an international reputation of that to try and buy something they don't deal in that is vaccines okay it is not a mistake okay to be dealing with these shitty characters to be dealing in these kinds of ways it is not a mistake to be pretend you don't know laws that you have presided over as the chairman so um again respectfully those rules will not apply you and i go to court and we see situations where people are you know mistaken in law and we say ignorance of the law is not an excuse you know the cases where people are mistaken in terms of their knowledge of whether the act is a crime or not um in that case and they are let off on those legal technicalities i will be absolutely prepared to let you know all the slide on those technicalities none of that is present here on the other side you see direct acts which were premeditated and gone into and if we all were not screaming and shouting you don't know what would have happened with this thing and we may not have gotten our money back my worry is that look we are just going to talk about cycling we have forgotten about wyoming there are many other cases i could go through okay when is this going to stop and that's why i started by saying that if we are not careful there is a whole generation that does not understand where we came from to establish this democracy if we are not careful we will break it and that's what i worry about right um actually they've been some people who have been who have been getting to me and and telling me that the media needs to pay attention to our debt burden as a country and the debt is getting worse uh by the day and they say we should you know sort of reduce a bit of the attention to the political issues and get to the debt because and i had one example that was being shown me like ghana is uh how old is ghana so you take ghana to be an old woman um who at that age is suffering and yet instead of her suffering being lessened all the time we are piling uh the suffering on on the on this old lady the question is is there financial loss and you spoke about and people are spoken about perjury um initially my understanding of to say that to the best of my knowledge i understood that in my in my english lessons to meant to mean that when you say to the best of your knowledge it means you have done some investigation and you have come to a conclusive point that the matter you are talking about is what you say it is then i decided to look it up in the marian webster dictionary and others and he said it says that whilst the first my understanding will be correct it gives room for the possibility of error in you know the way i think did he actually commit perjury in the circumstances where to say to the best of his knowledge and to use to the best of your knowledge will mean that a person thinks something is true but there may be something he or she does not know which makes that thing he thinks is true to be untrue to the best of his knowledge i will be prepared to grant you all the reliefs that those concepts offer but i do believe that if we did that it would still be a problem because here you have somebody who is extremely well educated extremely well experienced in these areas okay who actually puts pen to paper and signs it wasn't signed on his behalf who actually entered a negotiation with persons of questionable character it was not done beside him who actually did not involve the other technical persons in his ministry who he has to involve who did not seek cabinet approval prior to what he did who knows about the procurement laws and did not something i've said in our repeat an event can be ignored but no wise person ignores a trend you see a clear line of escaping and avoiding and running around the rules the laws and clearly there was a design to this so if you say oh maybe he did something three years ago and we have forgotten about it there may be some room but under the circumstances i don't know who will be guilty of just taking government money wasting spending losing it if we don't have any kind of questions to ask the honorable gentleman and i worry about what that means for our future okay like i've said we've gone through all kinds of institutions and laws and things just trying to save poor people's money right and we don't seem to be succeeding okay uh hold on for me quickly and then i'm coming to martin martin take us through and i want athenian sort of to speak after hearing all of you um take us through isolating the issues which in your view in your professional view must get this minister to answer in the manner you are asking in fact there are those who say that those who say he should resign are actually giving him a pat on the back because re this the effect of resignation is not the same as being sacked and there are those who insist that he ought to be sacked rather already now questions are being asked about this president and the government whether it is actually doing good governance in this respect so isolate the issues and tell us why he must be harmed rather than allow him to go take a two weeks break and return refreshed repentance uh to do uh another job and and this job is a very difficult one to do uh the questions i was posting to coffee bento i'm getting messages already suggesting where am i coming from trying to influence the view that he deserves compassion you you must know the job we do i i must reflect the both sides of the coin particularly where we are almost binary so yes okay may i make a a request that we play back the answer in parliament with the proceedings as i go along to be very very useful okay something up so let me let me inform production please get uh uh mr ko kwajiman menu's uh uh clip where he was asked the question directly whether or not payment has been made is whether or not payment has been made and this response please look for it martin needs it please continue as it looks okay so uh to put this matter in perspective before this uh mata came up they sputnik saga before that of course we all know that mr maminu had been in office okay and he had had at least two other brushes with the law in respect of procurement issues two other brushes one you know the anti-snake venom mata it went to the ppe this had my menu was found culpable so this is not the first time that message me menu has been involved in procurement breaches this anti-snake uh this venom mata is there then you come to two the frontiers contract as they're testing at the airport at his vetting when he was asked he said he doesn't know about it testing covenanting testing at the airport the minister says he doesn't know so fast forward then we come here and of course we will not forget the fact that he had been in public office chairman of the uh there's a public accounts committee and everything several other ministers didn't know it was the airport company that gave the information about what it really was was it not yes but you see this is coveted 19 and the ministry of health a vegas belief that the minister substantive minister for health is confident not any other matter it's not as if they are checking their aggregate products you know when you want to take agricultural products in and out and all that you say are talking about covid which is very much in line with his mandate okay so now you come here uh about the pedigree now the thing is that you see as a minister when you appear before the committee the first point i'm making is that they had made a request for payment of cash cash to the sheikh cash to the sheikh long before the minister came to parliament yet this minister choose not to reveal it they have made that payment and you know what just after his testimony the committee was so unconvinced members especially on the minorities they did a good job in respect of this particular matter they were unconvinced about this lack of payment so together as a body they agreed they convinced majority that let's write to the ministry of finance and bank of ghana so let's look at page 21 of the report that the artwork committee imagine if you can take away minority convicts majority deal with the issue i've asked people please it's because you have there's no time to defend the money starting so let me isolate matthias i want to have a good conversation you can say the minority convinced majority on the coming yeah we did everything by consensus so please um make the point but when you go in a certain tangent we can't help it because no no then i would stop you from there you guys you you don't have to die he has to be fair yeah you see the base is obviously conversation you see it is your report he's speaking to you consider your own yourself you have annotated your own reports so please so let's not forget the minister came to parliament on the 15th of july so let's take notice of that 15th july that was when he came to the first day to give evidence 15th of july now because the committee was unconvinced they wrote to the finance ministry to find out and the finance ministry by letter dated 26 of july then informed the committee that they had made that payment so paragraph is on page 21 it says the ministry of finance received a request from the ministry of health in respect of the purchase of sputnik v covered 19 vaccines blah blah blah okay the request from the minister of health was dated 10th march and received at the minister of health on 11th then the goal so this payment okay then you would go on so the point is that it was through and then the bank of ghana bank of ghana sorry it's okay it's okay bank of ghana is also page 21. so bank of ghana indicates that according to the bank of ghana in its letter of 31st march blah blah out of the total amount of 5.7 oh to the ship an amount of 2 million and fifty thousand representative fifty percent have been paid to him yes so the thing is that my first point on this matter is that these payments were made the minister knew same and yet suppress that evidence because you see to make this payment please let's put emphasis on this no payment will be made without a request you see going by the public financial management act they have to leave a request for release of funds from the ministry then let's narrow it down in that ministry by the public financial management act the account that you see the account holder who is the account holder of the ministry is the minister so he superintends over the account and you want to tell me that chief director can sit in his office and issue instructions that money be paid without telling the account the chief director is not the accountant that's that's not possible that's not possible so you see where the news is tightening around is neck it's about to just kill him because the other instance in which chief director will write to another minister is with the express instructions and approval of his minister because of knowledge in the service monkeys play by sizes the chief director can not buy himself right to the finance minister the chief director will in fact not there exactly that thank you so you see that that's my main nuisance and you then come to parliament and deceive he says to the best of my knowledge oh my god look there's a new scene after making the request for payment now that we've said that look two things mr admonish signed it if he didn't sign the chief director can only sign with his express instructions and to be so stated on the letter so does it surprise you that so far nobody is uh listen putting out that letter honorable do you have that letter requesting that the money be paid you have it when i get my turn i'll provide you with that he said so so far we have we have a life i can tell you on authority it was never brought to your committee never okay you'll finish your committee i mean you can contradict me straight if it was brought to your committee do your things have exhibits if it was bro if it was brought to their committee they could not have made the conclusions they made but that's the thing it would be to be upset for them okay so um you you are still developing that point yes but but let's play the the the answer i'll show you something let's play it and then you continue yes let's hear uh mr ajiman menu the minister of health presently on leave for two weeks and when he appeared before parliament's ad hoc committee and was asked the direct question whether or not payment for the sputnik v vaccines uh have been made this was his response we have been pressurizing them to give us their blessings to know cyril's avail and then yesterday they said actually they gave us verbal invitation get verbal notice that they will not be able to supply any longer and she requested that they then terminate the agreement which they had actually done so as we sit here i believe there's no contract between the two of us so honorable minister what becomes of the payment you've made so far if any and i would say to the best of my knowledge we haven't done any payment as yet but when you issue an lc it's an instrument of payment and i don't know i've read the lc it's site but partial performance is allowed they can draw on whatever that they've supplied and then the rest of their i would say this lc was done on site we cannot draw until we inform the bank that we have received which we haven't done as yet so what what becomes of the 20 000 that they supplied they're going to reengage after they have actually terminated a contract the initial 300 000 was going to be supplied by 20 000 and that is how we captured it so standing between the two parties thank you all right so you see the point i want to make develop from it so as we go on is that so you see that he says they are now going to engage to pay for the 20 000 now i'm going to engage to pay for the 20 000. no let's play it again oh no play it again please just to be fair because we are going to refer to it let's you are quoting his word please initial 20 000. you know they were supposed to supply 300. he says the initial 20 000 was going to be he said something either subtracted 20 000 supply let's hear him again yes the towards the end of it minister uh what becomes of the payment you've made so far if any to the best of my knowledge we haven't done any payment as yet but when you issue an lc it's an instrument of payment and i don't know i've read the lc it's site but partial performance is allowed they can draw on whatever that they've supplied and then the rest of would say this else was done on site we cannot draw until we inform the bank that we have received which we haven't done as yet so what what becomes of the 20 000 that they supplied you they're going to reengage after they have actually terminated a contract the initial 300 000 was going to be supplied by 20 000 and that is how we captured it surrounded standing between the two parties so please please please determinate i never said payment you said he said payment yes he said never use that you're going to re-engage over what no no but let's quote him what's your understanding he said that they are going to re-engage over after day after minute we engage over what no but we are just relying on this word you were asking no no he said no he said payment yes you have a better understanding please let's take this posture information that's informative i'm seeking information right you were the one interrogating him you are asking him the questions you ask him what happens to the payment that was conclusive to say that you know the payment had been made and i know as a lawyer of your caliber that you won't ask that question unless you know the answer as we're doing cross-examination so you say that's been paid he says no to the best of my knowledge payment has not been done then you tell him about the lc that you have then he tells you that it will not be paid unless they have so in fact if you still rely on his to the best of my knowledge you'll be wrong because he has moved from to the best of minority to say emphatically that unless we have ordered the payment it will not be paid and we have not ordered payment then you proceed further ask so what happens next then he says they will have to re-engage excellent what's your understanding of the re-engagement something first i i thank you for the opportunity the platform no you you start yours soon because you see the question was predicated on an earlier answer regarding payment through elsi and i have paid 22 of 219 of the transcript it flowed from his answer i asked him about the letters of credit the payment that had been made and then flowing from that i asked about the lc if you listen to him he responded by saying that the lc has not been cashed yet because no payment no supply has been made he was emphatic about good then i asked him about the 20 000 that has been supplied and he said that they're going to engage we didn't come back specifically on what he meant by re-engagement as they have terminated the contract because he said the people have terminated the contract i asked okay so you are they've given you 20 000 he said we're going to re-engage we did not go further to establish the re-engagement is referring to the respect of the doses that have been supplied in this transcript what is the question you ask again that brought the re-engagement it's here yes what did you say he said mr mr chairman to the best of my knowledge not done we have not done the payment yet referring to the lc right and he came to explain again what he meant by no the question you asked before he explained what that's my question uh-huh vulnerable minister so what becomes of the payment you have made so far right that is predicated on the else that's right yeah oh you go ahead this is what he has said he explained to and after his explanation let's read it here okay mr chairman if that is implica that is so they are not just terminated yesterday after we have signed a contract they gave us two ways to supply the first 300 000 we ordered based on our ability to give them letters of credit as part of the terms of the agreement our letters of credit delayed and got to them got them some time and then they came back after they have confirmed that they had run out of stock blah blah blah after two weeks we enquired and they said still not got the supply and so we started engaging them that if that is the matter they should permit us and make ability to withdraw from the contract so that we can do something different to get us versus and so we control started putting pressure on them and they gave us july and it is like we've been pressuring them to give her the vaccines to no avail he had confirmed that eventually they had established the lc so once he said he had terminated then i asked him about the question of the lc because you see the lco was in two parts at the fed if you look at the contract they're talking about site elsi and that is what my colleague from ashama even referred to in his question that in the contract there is a lc assigned and a defend lc so i wanted a clarification from him if you have issued the lca aside are you as a down payment my understanding of this instrument of payment you would have to present documentation that you've actually shipped and then you can draw on it so i wanted a clarification the payment you've made in respect of the lc he now came back to say by explaining feather that yes the lc has not been drawn and this was his answer to my question mr the letter of credit was done on site they cannot draw until we inform the bank that we have received which we have not yet sold out these were his words all right now i would allow him to finish his point i will take you through all the evidence and every single thing the man gave us for the people of ghana to make their judgments we have our report but permit me to just read that last so that you don't forget and then finish your point yeah so uh mr marking asking the question again so what becomes of the 20 000 that they supplied you then his answer was we are going to re-engage after they have actually terminated the contract the initial 300 was going to be shot supplied by 20 000 and that is how we captured it so there was an understanding between the two parties so now they have terminated we are now going to look at how we are going to pay for this one oh you are easy it's insane so go on we are now i'm going to go on meanwhile back then he had had the uh this letter issued for release of fans you go make your appointment 10th match that that letter is 10th march the minister came to parliament 15 july he brought you lc i didn't bother to bring you this letter so this interview didn't capture the final part of the answer but the transcript captures the final part of the answer which to me appears to to uh contradict the meaning that mr fear michael was trying to that one correct because in the conclusion he was specific yes that they were now going to re-engage on how to pay for the 20 000 that has been supplied we chose a blatant lie with due respect you see joyfulness they can't lie you see what i was going to cover up for him if you hadn't read it it's just going to cover up again so the point is that look there's a context vaccines in short supply you can't be a serious buyer when you don't have money and this minister is having us believe that the sheikh didn't have the money so on what basis was he calling the shake that lease bring vaccines bring vaccines when the sheikh hadn't received money quickly that was a lie so for me once he didn't make much he didn't disclose that he had asked that cash be paid cash be paid and the cash was paid on 13th april 13th april and it was this cash that then gave him the bargaining power to make a demand for the vaccines because i mean who born dog can you ask for vaccines when you've not paid when the vaccine is in such a short supply ah coming can you imagine it's just look this all of these issues that the minister was just not being candid with the uh committee and that's why i keep saying that at school one two two and then section 29 of the parliament that says that when you expressly lie or even you give an incomplete answer it is pedro it is pedro because without your payment you couldn't be accidentally so so you are saying about four months after he ensures payment has been done excellent he's in parliament saying to the best of his knowledge yes no payment has been done and that's why and he's asked further questions and he actually confirms uh affiliate marketing is asking him the question and he is trying to explain to our finger marking suggesting that fear marking didn't know exactly what it was about actually then he says they cannot be paid yes because we have not yes authorized the payment excellent and that we will go and engage them subsequently you see it so point number two another leg of the perjury the minister came to parliament with an exhibit oh let me not forget please before uh he came to parliament he brought a written response he brought a written response to parliament dated 14th uh july 14 july asked for it to be printed 14 july when he answered categorically that no payment has been made he has a letter his written response honorable can i read from that one since you have heard which one written response before he came he has a letter dated 14th july yes yes okay it's it's not in controversy yeah so there's no payment not casey at all so this is the minister he signs it no caveat actually i'm getting the you see i wish you could get more of the tip because i'm getting the impression that this to the best of my knowledge even came from somewhere i wish the tip would show anyway but for now look look at it any payment made so far says none um yes good uh that's a fix evidence of payment and payments instruments for the transactions answer no payment made under agreement with the private office of his highness sheikh ahmed dalmukh al maktoum please look at it p3 is the minister who signed himself before he came to testify he was asked to do a written response this 14th july you see there's no caveat this to the best of his knowledge i wish you could play slow it came from somewhere before he then had to sit but he's too late look act 300 says that if you lie or give incomplete answer it's still peddling look at it no payment made no caveat whatsoever nothing yet and this is his own signed statement yes and you know that before you even sign things like this obey abby as minister you won't have anybody check you take parliament serious if you just sit in your office and write anything without checking i mean how can this so as far as we are concerned there there's no negotiation about the patrick no no no that's not look at it this is his own statement please sign some can you show can we show it to the u.s maybe another this is captured then come to the second leg he said he brought a letter to parliament they're saying padre that they shake he asks the shake to withdraw and they shake amicably we have that now you check from the letter from the ministry's lawyer to the sheriff's office the sheik's office responds on 25th july that they will only refund their money when they receive notice of termination notice of termination so what becomes of the letter that the minister took to parliament that the sheikh has withdrawn but do you have that one too no make your phone yes so the point is that he comes to parliament to say letter on the uh lesson 15th of july his exhibits that oh here here here the shakers withdrawn that's 15 july by 25th july the response from the sheik's office to him to him of course ree's lawyer is that i'll refund your money when i receive notice of termination so it means that the agreement for the shaykh the agreement is still enforced yet you say the sheikh has terminated you've come to show us a letter where the sheikh has terminated let's begin to look at this is taking the bullet for somebody at least i mean another part of it if i just doesn't adapt it looks like when we catch them here then they try to contrive another lie you cut them here then you try to contrive another one because it just doesn't make sense okay hold it on there um haven't heard what you have heard from coffee bento and martin who dives into the specifics with the dates in the manner he has done do you still stand by your view that for as long as your committee did not recommend sanctions against consideration of sanctions against the minister personally he has done nothing wrong despite the fact that you found that he ignored the president attorney general's advice we should have gone to parliament uh all of that you said that if he had brought it you would have done it very quick for him and the secret of agency and the ppa ppa2 uh was not followed through and even though it was before the ppa for ratification that had also not been secured yet all right uh something yeah you see if people disjoint the facts obviously they would draw a certain conclusion and poison the minds of people i have stated that throughout the hearing the man was counted any information we needed he gave us and i'll demonstrate that proof to you when we listened to him on the 15th of july after we had closed he indicated that he would do some checks and get back to us with some more information on the 3rd of august 2021 this letter was addressed to the committee and it's part of our records this is what the letter says addressed to the committee clerk submission of federal information to adult committee on procurement or sputnik vaccine i am directed to form the subsequent to the last appearance of the honorable minister for health with his technical team before your honorable committee some new information has come to the notice of the ministry of health that some funds have been transferred by gog to the private office of sheikh da monk al maktoum in respect of the agreement for the supply of splitting vaccines we are therefore forwarding the following document for your kind consideration to that effect one letter from controller to bank of ghana for the telegraphic transfer two bank of ghana foreign exchange transfer instructions three bank of ghana notice of transfer of funds from the government of ghana to private office of mac2 and then email correspondence between the ministry of health and the private office of sheikh maktoum in respect of inquiry of the transfer of funds dated 21st of july 2021 now i need to first make the point that it is not true that government of ghana terminated the contract there is an official letter which is dated 14th of july which letter the minister submitted to us per exhibit moh8 to the effect that maktoum has offered to terminate and he had indicated that again in his earlier testimony to us that indeed there was this back and forth and they had indicated that they could not supply so if you rely on only the email and this email that they attached and you see when i say he was transparent if he wanted to hide anything from us he would not give us even telegraphic transfers because his cover had already been blown honorable he did that because his cover had been blown bank of ghana informed you well ahead he the letter from the ministry you see take your time and get the facts i mean i don't want them to have an unhealthy banter you know i respect you and you respect me let's let me get you the facts you see his letter to the inquiry that he made preceded our letter to the finance ministry if you say the finance ministry had responded to us and his cover had been blown that is why it was done i'll tell you that is not true the letter is here letter to the ministry of finance they responded to us dated 27th they we wrote to them to detect their letter the email it's here the email is dated 21st when did they bring it i'm saying that the letter is right wait okay if you if you are asking him directly he'll be responding please don't this letter this letter at the time that the ministry they delivered it to the mail room they if you have access to the the my colleagues on the other side it took us time to get this letter at the time we got this letter they had already given us the response and if you look at it but no please please please this is a discovery letter we are gone on a weekend take your time i guess if martin if you decide to go about this this way you embarrass yourself at one point wait the letter is the covering letter to us bear in mind that the man has written to matthoon to confirm this is here when did they come to you that country letter is determined i guess we don't know when you came back in one breath you said that because we had received that is when he went to do the inquiry yes that's what you said it's not true twenty-sixth july oh that is not true you are saying that that one listen you say you see martin if you don't take your time answering you you said that upon receipt of this on the 26th and he he down did his inquiry on the 10th and wrote to us and i'm saying no proud to proud to the writing of our letter to finance ministry the man had already written for the confirmation of the exact amount bear in mind that we only wrote to the ministry because at the media review there were some figures in the media review budget about releases and as a committee we start in conclusion look we want clarity releases may not amount to actual payment so let us write then to the ministry again then we asked the minister the inquiry that you were supposed to make where where is the response he brought it if you look at the dates they even apologize for their late response this is what they said thank you for your email apologies for the late response everywhere on eight holidays please note our response below in red and then they go on and on the very same document that you were referring to we document talks about the formal request for refund i am saying that for if they made a mistake in saying that make a formal request not on termination because they had already written to them on the 14th of july saying clearly this is what they say in the interim government if government of ghana wishes to source versus from other supply until this issue is resolved we are ready to cooperate with government to meet the country's requirement given our cordial relationship with the government we wish to terminate the vassal supply agreement we hope that when the suppliers supplies are restored we'll be able to re-engage our new terms and follow due process for that purpose we look forward to continuing to work closely with government to further enhance the bilateral ties et cetera the point here is that they terminated the contract mark too again if you say that the ministry the minister lied because it was only when we received uh information from the minister of finance that he then came back to us with this information i'm saying that is untrue because on the fact he did that inquiry long before we even wrote to the minister of finance long before we received a response from the ministry of finance and in fact when he came back to us he gave us the swift response he added the letter from controller because the engaged controller to know exactly the amount that had been paid by way of the down payment but bank of ghana no no no no no we are not ready to bank of ghana please that's your no nobody had written to bank of ghana there was no time no no no is that that was there no but they are inquiring they got a response on the 21st this is it i've read it to yourself you have it he said i am directed to acquire the following from you as of agency have any funds been transferred into your account from the banks in respect of our agreement dated 9 march 2021 which was terminated on the 14th of july then they response their response was affirmative they gave a one word response affirmative if the answer to one above is in the affirmative please let us know how was the transfer how was it transferred and when same was transferred these were made via international inward remittance bank transfer and that they've given advance for the initial 300 000 doses then subject to the above steps subject to the above the steps you are taking for the refund of the balance as may be applicable then they read where you have a problem with upon receipt of a formal termination notice from gog will refund the remaining amount for the non-supply doses but i am saying i am saying that you cannot rely on this language to mean that the minister lied by telling us that it is my tune that has terminated i am saying that the minister attended the sign letter by matu stating that they could not supply his outfit could not supply so it couldn't have been that he lied and this letter was dated 14 july so consider this as perhaps an error in language use there's a document that is on their letterhead which you can validate you can do an inquiry and ask whether the minister unless you want to suggest that this letter is fake but you've not suggested that and i'm saying that it cannot be so that you will say that the minister lied so by saying that now now tell me tell me this uh uh marking so that is not the fact what do you say what do you say to the section of the public including martin and um uh coffee bento this morning who insists that the minister must go okay so first on martin made a very fundamental mistake in the submission why he thinks that the minister must go he predicted it on two things on the issue of the uh snake issue i i i don't have the full fact i will not respond to it but on front front yes you said that the minister lied that he didn't know anything about it oh no no you can't say he didn't you right meaning that he was superintendent but that is where you are not being fed to the minister the minister was categorical that the frontier healthcare services thing at the airport was not handled by his ministry we as a committee further proved and eventually the evidence was that it was done by the aviation ministry aviation ministry brought evidence of the the contract letters to pp and order so you cannot make a statement against him that he could not give us appropriate answers when he came appeared before us so please unders that's called take him out of it now let's come to uh uh coffee bento you see mr benton from in your report from all you have heard the section of ghanaian say should this minister go okay so let me respond to that great where i sit the man comes with a story what is a story that at a particular point in time debt rates were going up infection rates were going up government to government sources bilateral arrangements that have been put in place for supply of vaccines had failed us they were now talking about six-month delay he needed to take action he needed to make vaccines available for guardians to vaccinate in the process he concedes that he relied heavily on the committee that had been put in place to manage this covered situation subsequent to that he looks out for a private sector sources because all people were promising that we could supply and all that the minister never said he engaged the russian government and went that field he decided to rely on private success he never said that he never said that yes that's the record check that okay apart from the you know you had spoken before he went to the senate i need that in good faith he meant well that is one two as a committee our main concern was in respect of the monies paid for the unsupplied doses and we made a claim our recommendation that steps should be taken to recover those funds which as we speak we have correspondence the minister was candid by bringing those correspondence to us all the letters to them the request for the bank account and all that and we have every information that look as we speak the special collection account at bank of ghana is a receipt of that amount that swift is there for anybody to verify mr bento makes very very wild allegations and i think that he should take his time to read the full report the minister should not go i am saying that mr bento should read the full report because if you start to say that somebody with a shady character i mean to me the minister has done wrong he has done no wrong he shouldn't go he's he's entitled to his views but he should also be measured in certain objectives he used to describe others in the course of this if the president in the course of the week did you ask the csos to show you a single law that the minister has breached did you ask them that question something did you say they were being emotional and all of that right article 1815 talks about international commercial agreement being approved by coming to parliament with parliament uh necessary modifications the committee the committee the committee concluded that he should have brought it i am saying that [Music] what is the consequence of non-compliance in the ccw l case the country um west country race case where the law caught the supreme court found that look the contract did not comply with statute the local government the procurement laws and said that look this contract is not valid [Music] that notwithstanding certain benefits have accrued quantum merit they said pay for what they have done very well now it is the same supreme court in the other cases right look at it in context services have been provided where have we services i am talking about this case and then the monies that have been paid in this case in wyoming you are saying that they provided services and then what did the supreme court say he said the moneys have been paid yes the international arbitration respecting the supreme court of ghana's decision went ahead to make others to the effect that they're not with standing they respect the supreme court of ghana final arbitration okay but they're not withstanding certain services have been provided the country ghana has received certain services to that extent whatever has been physically we know that there's a tangible delivery vaccines on record the minister said those going on sensors these were the vaccines that were used all right reasonably flowing therefore we received the vaccines unless they're very thin the supreme court i'm saying that we received that did we receive the vastness yeah that's the very thing they supported there's no basis for urging him to resign or for him to be sucked samson question of whether there was a financial loss to the states my contention was that to the extent that the committee came to a conclusion that there were some funds to be refunded as a result of unsupply losses and same have since been refunded i would not have any basis to argue thousand financial laws here therefore it is only when there is a call there is a financial loss to the state that we can now say that the minister should be president what do you say to me who say this president is being very terribly weak in this direction and this is bad governance not good governance what do you say to them something i am dealing with my report no no we are here we are discussing and you can answer a question like that as a civil society activist you don't expect me to come and say that that person is expressing you don't have a view about what is done to the public person as regards the conduct of a duty bearer can let's let's situate it let not be uh you know you you you situate it in a context so that i can answer okay so let's take an example you remember defativo on the bass branding matter that's correct okay and i hosted you guys here so frequently and even though that six million ghana cities was refunded we still piled pressure that she ought to resign and she had to resign this is six million involved this one is 16 million involved what has changed in the circumstances do you remember uh former ec boss shall also say what was her crime which led to her removal she was she was not giving her an opportunity to resign she was removed meaning for the many years she has said from ncc up to the ec she was asked go home not a dime for you why because she came in renegotiated one contract which contracts the evidence admits she saved the country a whopping 20 million dollars but you know what a crime was the finding shows that there was no fraud there was no crownism there was no financial loss because of course there was 20 million dollars saved her crime was that she did not submitted feder for ppa approval and even to seek for ratification which is allowed by the law the ppa was then uh janine watting was of the view that he will not ratify it because she had not met best practices not that she had violated any law best practices had not been met what has changed you and i were all here and we were clamoring the npp was doing all the press conferences and we were covering them and bringing you guys in the studio the principle must remain why should ajiman menu be treated differently issue of resignation is his personal decision issue of termination of appointment is a decision at that point of the president i am [Music] looking at a work given to me and my duty is as much as possible deal with issues of inaccuracies arising out of this report and that is what i am doing and that is what i will do we're faced with facts we've done our recommendations we've come with our conclusions you must have a view just like you said my views my views are contained in the report we are going to the next issue to discuss sadly listen insecure why is calling zada and his friends facing 52 charges why is it because they have not brought the contract back to parliament for the changes that they sought to make is that not the case i have not seen the college dauda case in any event is in the court and i would not make any attempt to comment okay something that is in court all right and the man has his rights you know in court and it is supposed to be uh doubted by the court okay what i have is the report that i have the recommendation there too and the outcome of the recommendation right these are facts okay i noticed that people are coming out with their own misinterpretation here and there as far as i'm concerned those must be properly situated okay so that we can thank you thank you let's let's have a uh do we have the nbc's communications director joining us uh officer sami james do you have you yes please i'm on the line okay thank you very much but i need to correct one thing um uh honorable marking has said that uh coffee bento had said that the minister was a shady character he said shake shake he was dealing with the shady character and i said that okay somebody so he didn't say the minister no no he said that sheikh was a shady character i'm saying that it cannot be the case all right that he would use such and guess what i i can predict what you are going to say but let me give you this warning and caution that we'll play you back if you are lucky to get into government and these things happen and your principles change we'll play them back to you what do you say that's that's another um let me first of all uh make the point that this is important for us to have at the back of our mind something you always say at the beginning of this show you see that this is news file where we put ghana fest that's correct right you're right so we need to put ghana first in this conversation on this highly esteemed platform again i want to make the point that you see there is a minimum level of sincerity candle and consistency required of us as persons who comment on national issues okay we cannot be advocating for one set of rules to be applied to a certain group of people and when it comes to other people we advocate for different set of rules to be applied to them because we all know that we are all subject to the laws of this country and that nobody is above the law and so what we advocated that should be applied to one person under the same circumstance should be applied to another person because the circumstances have not changed what are we discussing again i don't want to even go into the issues of perjury and whether the minister lied to parliament or not i think um senior martian people have done justice to the issues that anybody who has followed this issue i mean dispassionately can attest to that fact for me there are two issues i want to focus on the first is have there been any violations of the laws of this country has there been um any the commission of offenses in the way a manner government actors or government officials conducted this whole transaction that to me is the first issue we need to interrogate and spread out then secondly we need to look at the way a mana disabled transaction was handled by the minister for health and the minister for finance and ask ourselves whether they have demonstrated that they have the competence and the integrity that the high offices the occupy demands now if i can start with the first issue i raised relative to whether or not the laws of this country have been violated in the manner this whole transaction has been handled or conducted you see something if a person is caught stealing and that person upon being caught returns stolen items does that mean that the person is not guilty of theory doesn't mean that how is that how is that example appropriate that example is appropriate because people want us to accept that the mere fact that monies which were illegally paid under an unlawful agreement has been refunded as compass those who entered into that unlawful agreement and did the bigger payments of any liability and i cannot fathom or understand that because the near fact that monies have been refunded doesn't mean that laws have not been preached it doesn't mean that crimes have not been committed section 96 of the public financial management act of 2016 is very clear and if i can just um read the appropriate subsections that stop section 1 anc it says that a person acting in an office or employment connected with the procurement or control of government store or the collection management or disbursements of amounts in respect of a public fund or a public trust who a makes an unauthorized commitment resulting in a financial obligation for the government the is responsible for any improper payment of public funds or payment of money that is not duly verified in line with existing procedures commits an offense and is liable on summary conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than six months and not more than five years or to a fine of not less than 100 penalty units and not more than 2 500 penalties onto both now in this case let's look at first section 1a if that person makes an unauthorized commitment resulting in a financial obligation for the government the vast supply agreement entered into between the ministry of health and this dubai ship was authorized was it approved by cabinet or by the president via executive approval the answer is no was it approved by parliament as required by article 181-5 of the 1992 constitution the answer is no was this executed in compliance with a public procurement act the answer is a big new because the public procurement law was not followed as far as this transaction is concerned so clearly if you look at section 9618 of the pfn the public financial management act that law has been violated the minister for health authority to you know have entered into that transaction secondly the minister for finance have no authority to have made payment for this unlawful transaction and subsection one c of section 96 of this act says that a person you know who is acting in an office and um is dealing with a disbursement of amounts in respect of a public fund who is responsible for any improper payment of public plan now if you look at the unlawful agreement which was not in compliance with the public procurement law and was not even approved by parliament payment was only supposed to be made under this agreement upon delivery of on the supply of the person here is the key that the finance minister isn't paid far more than the twenty thousand doses which was supplied by the dubai state so the payment was not even in accordance with a tenth of the unlawful contract even the terms of the lawful contract were not respected as far as payment made by the finance minister keno furiata is consent that aside because the agreement had failed against the 1992 constitution the public procurement law and all that the finance minister had no basis to advance payment under this unlawful agreement so we don't have to you know argue over this matter it is so clear for me it's an open and short case that the laws of this country have been violated with impunity by both the finance minister ken operator and the minister for help okay and so these people cannot be allowed to continue to hold the offices they are continuing i hear people say that and i have you asking other panelists they are sorry we all make mistakes okay if we all make mistakes and an apology should suffice under these circumstances then let's challenge of faith as the east chester because we all make mistakes unless you know um overturned the conviction and imprisonment of mr buffalo and the two others who have been convicted and increases in the ncaa trial for a la for britain of the public procurement law and let's quickly let our tony general quickly enter and only possibly i'm not sure i'm not sure one set of rules for nbc officials in a different set of rules for mpt by the official if this transaction and all these issues had happened under the ndc muhammad regime what would have been the position of arpaio and our friends in the npp who are seeking to defend this clearly independent matter so look the laws of this country have been violated and the fact that we all make mistakes the fact that the minister has been apologetic cannot escort you from liability in this matter for people like mr bentos that people have gone to jail people are being prosecuted thank you the same witches of the public procurement thank you very much thank you very much sami and um we'll return to you on the substantive matter of the sacrament housing uh debacle if you like saga of 200 million dollars um let me uh if i can hear you in a minute so that we take a break in just a minute uh what do you say to the issues of governance that are being raised um to say that uh the president is not showing leadership in this regard it is extremely disappointing um we all remember the president came on and said he will protect the public pest um it's sad to say but the president has not only not protected the public pest this is an example of other things that have happened which effectively is an emasculation of public institutions aimed at fighting um corruption and i speak as one who has been in the fight all right from before him all the way down to occupied ghana putting in the surcharge and disallowance strengthening the auditor general this president saw to the removal of one of the best auditor generals we've had against law as our view okay this president has seen to a situation where his minister has failed to respect all the laws all of them including not going to cabinet now when you have a situation like this an irresistible conclusion is that that person is backed by a higher power so this will reflect very poorly on this president's legacy as somebody who said he's he'll protect the public pest he is not protecting the public press we were part of the vast branding that you just mentioned we forced people to resign over this thing we i went to court over with cgm okay and we've been fighting these battles this is the west we have seen in this fight towards institutional fight against corruption and on this level everything that can be breached has been breached this will be one of those things that will be drummed incessantly going forward the mpp will always have to answer to it they will always be reminded of it and this president's legacy will be stained there is still some room but if he goes ahead and makes a joke of it he goes ahead and does not take a stand on it he goes ahead and allows us to be as it is he would have really told us all who are fighting corruption that we are wasting our time something quickly kofi is entitled to his views but in in a minute just like i mentioned the submission that the minister breached the law when he failed to go to cabinet with respect there is no such law that demands of the minister to subject a ministerial decision to cabinet why did you what's that finding yes your committee why did you make that funny that we never said so we said that his decision was a ministerial decision so anybody who argues and says that he breached the law which law in now which law in this country is that no the minister asks for the president so he does not necessarily need to go to cabinet so what he's done effectively means this is the act of the presidency so that turn your position all the line of bridges and you added that is failure to go to cabinet was a breach of the law and i'm saying that you entitled your opinion but to the extent that you are making this as a legal point i'm sorry that is not the law all right thank you thank you finally finally on the william case that was cited in one of me he the supreme court found that he did not have a contract at all it isn't the case that the way you'll make it is the facts are the same as what we find ourselves here all right so don't let us also in our quest to thank you deal with the mata thank you throw dust into the eyes of people thank you the supreme court said you're saying yes yes you're so very okay let me come on there listen this which law has it breached you see in the spirit of transparency and everything you see the finance minister under the public financial management act section five finance minister usually has to uh seek cabinet uh this is what you call it uh approvals and all that look at this i'm looking at a five c okay yeah it says acting on the advice of the attorney general is subject to the approval of parliament enter into and execute an agreement on behalf of the government of ghana in relation to matters of a financial nature but that apart let me come to b so it says in consultation with the civil service council and with the approval of cabinet establish structures or units within the ministry necessary to enable the minister discharge responsibility under this act so financial matters financial matters now i'm saying that by uh reasoning okay just finance minister has to seek the approval of cabinet to establish units and structures yes to this child and so there's a checklist before payments are made they say checklist you check is there parliamentary approval is there cabinet approval the document is there parliamentary approval is necessary is that cabinet approved there's a checklist oh a contract which breaches article 181 plus five of the constitution is now employed and therefore creates no rights see attorney general's farooq atlantic and all the other ones then the supreme court goes on at 145 to indicate that there should be notice to the uh parliament okay that uh-huh so let me read that he's giving you the exception in the country waste case where they said yes even though it has happened they have done some work so let's feed them that's a previous case so in there william they will not likely do that again all right and say there are seven notice that it should be clear i have a contract thank you let me read something stop the law you are respectful let me read some messages then we'll take a break i'm going to read some messages and then we'll take a break um collins collins little titan uh okay thank you colleen's little tattoo says just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive a liar knows that he is a liar but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction and that's what the health minister has done and must be punished papa j junior ali khem says ajiman menu lied under oath and that is a serious case especially to our democratic lifestyle uh our democratic lifestyle as a country then uh early wealth is that your name ellie wolf says these leaders are committing offenses and getting away with it stephen in saul says good morning samson a good leader can only be determined when he or she faces crisis now here is the case that the health minister was unable to think well when he faced the covert 19 pandemic uh he said he wasn't thinking well he did he doesn't say that he doesn't think well all the time this simply means that he's not qualified to occupy the office perez says when you come to public to defend iran you find faults with even how people walk about then uh a facey born says that the president's silence on corruption issues in his government proves what martin amidou said that quote he is the mother serpent of corruption then we have charles rakubrobe uh at i tazan says when gifts become samples which transfigurates into partial supply we are seriously challenged by changing truth babangida osman says the minister has violated laws lied on oath and there are evidence to support this claim but mr marking as the chairman of the committee and to the best of his knowledge the man is a saint he hasn't said that akai says how on earth do you expect the mother serpent of corruption to prosecute a baby serpent that cannot happen please focus on other issues and this is how i'm going to uh draw the cutting on this subject it's a very short article written by dr kwame akufu anov in two dr kwame akufu anov in two writing on this issue and sent this out he titles it the goose and the gander on equal and opposites he says my reaction to calls for adamant menu my reaction to calls for admin menu's dismissal has been mixed i find it amusing on the one hand because of the inactions of his enablers or supporters and the very lame excuses they have so far profit on the other hand i am saddened by the efforts to sacrifice principle on the altar of transactional politics and its unintended consequences on our institutions of governors not too long ago mr charlotte say was ghana's electoral commissioner in spite of her robust defense and the public perception of political motivation she was dismissed by the president for procurement breaches suffered a similar faith of having i suffered a similar feat of having my contract terminated without course for implementing a law duly passed by the parliament of ghana on tv license despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary my board claimed innocence of the policy and in a shameful public stunt coordinated with the nmc got the latter to do government's bidding there was eloquent silence over the matter by some of those screaming their voices horse today i am not the only one who finds honorable admin menu's position untenable and regrettable but i am one of those who is not surprised at the reaction of his political enablers and supporters why because over time i have realized that wrongdoing in this country is determined more by the player than the deed it is for this reason that against global best corporate practice dr kk sapon the ceo of gmpc had a public spot with freddie blay his board chair during which confidential information was freely traded on social media what was the consequence none similarly miss francis acm the ceo of cylinder company procured a loan from a bank without her board's approval to pay salaries when the board queried she locked them out of the office the board's legitimate effort to investigate the matter was not only undermined by mr samuel batting the ceo of state enterprises commission at the time the board was rather placed under investigation once again no consequence for the offending ceo then the ceo of dvla was involved in unauthorized collection of fees for drivers seeking services his action was deemed a minor infraction and forgiven by his godfathers these happenings demonstrate a number of issues one thou shall not touch my anointed two irrespective of the gravity of offense it must give way to political expediency three disregard contrarian voices and frame them as heartless haters if some politicians are eloquently defending honorable ajima menu in spite of his serious transgressions it only reinforces the notions i have outlined above i don't expect the president to fire the minister as he did the auditor general or the ec ec boss and i am on setting whether i'm on setting what will become of our public outreach but whatever happens i have come to the firm conclusion that under the npp variant we have seen an earlier version the goose and the gander are unequal and opposite i have lost respect for some but i refuse to lose hope from dr kwame akofu enough in tow who was uh bought boss of the gbc until he was removed over tv license mates we take a quick break and return to ask whether the 200 million dollar sublime saga what is happening is the usual political chop chop that has been exposed or it is the usual political partisan smear campaign that has been activated we'll be right back hey welcome back this is news file it's almost authorities with news analysis platform and here on news file we put ghana first we have lots of your messages on this matter of the first the one that we discussed but we'll go to the next one and when we find sufficient time we will read your messages uh to the rest of the world now you know that a number of people have presently been hauled before the courts to be prosecuted as in criminal prosecution for the segment housing projects this has been on the front banner for a long time um there are five people alhaji collins daoda kwaku ajiman angelo they are facing a total of 52 counts uh that is criminal charges 52 over the manner in which the segment sag lima project was handled now uh for lack of time let me quickly go to um let me start with uh fair marking what's what's your understanding of this issue and you know without without paying too much attention to the courtroom because the rules may be offended how does it come to you like well something like you said it's a matter in court a.g has his own contentions the accused persons have a right to defend themselves i would not want to go into the facts as stated by the aeg because i don't want any political to history others may want to make their own political comment that is up to them my view is that you see all of these engagements in the media platform civil society organizations questioning government decisions is what will help our democracy i am not in any way against people expressing their views they must because these are the additional checks and balances we need to improve on governance so for civil society organizations they can make their comments i that's their their rights i'm a politician and unfortunately uh they're on the other side so whatever comment will be unfair and i don't want this thing to be so seen as such but if you grant me leave i would uh come back to this uh sputnik thing and say that it appears that in all the commentary i have not had people even commend the committee for the good job they did this is a bipartisan committee this report is not a majority decision report it's a report by consensus many people have their reports not signed i don't know how some draft got lit but there's a report signed by my gusel and my colleague akando and last week we acknowledged that fact right this platform and we were bold telling the ghanaian people where we felt the minister went wrong in our findings in our recommendations they are there and it isn't the case that somebody is defending wrongdoing but we are defending the facts and we also realize that many people are twisting the fact if i hear that they say the minister lie i would go all out to make that statement to the effect that he never lied to us based on the fact if somebody wants to question a document i would say look these are all documents that are before us until somebody comes to say that oh this document was not procured rightly or that i doubt it i have every good reason to believe what has come before us and that is the conclusion of the committee people talk about the law that he bridged the law by not going to pull a cabinet that is not correct because there is no such law he's a minister he's a head of entity he did has he bridged the procurement act i said no because the application for ratification is yet to be responded to by the ppa and we captured that in our report that ppa says it's investigated under the law the law allows that if you come for ratification they have to assess it and determine and all that paramount to us was the funds to be repaid which we have so done but let me quickly add this point that perhaps the minister's choice of words initially the first hearing language use and all that perez might have given a certain impression of him i believe that as he goes along he would you know deal with you know his choice of weights and how he approaches some of these things appropriately so that he doesn't create a certain impression of himself but martin i know you are so passionate about this have one thing that we've also not given credit is the fact that at that material point in time and something forgive me for over emphasizing this and indulge me on this gog sources government to government sources all bilateral sources had failed their country in this vaccine government had no intention of looking for privacy sources government has signed agreement under the covers deal other arrangements that the the world bank had arranged for uh countries like us nobody's letter is dated after signing the no no i'm not talking about russia i'm talking about the government to government arraignment government of ghana had no arraignment with russia that's a matter of fact i'm talking about the arraignment government's heart with other bilateral sources before raising an issue they say we are actually not paying attention to clearly and for some people sometimes who think that it is only opposition people who prompt certain things if i told you who is prompting this you'll be shocked that this sputnik thing has actually held us back for many months without a vaccine where we could have gotten the vaccine maybe a little earlier and eventually we are getting a vaccine but it is johnson johnson it's not the effort of the minister that has yielded us anything so they are asking the more reason he alone should not actually be answering questions let me come back to my point i i am saying that look at that at that material point in time where the indian situation has escalated and they are blocked supply which also asks a question should the minister have thrown his hands up in despair and said look i don't want to look out for vaccines from the private sector i'm waiting till august what will be the reaction of the ghanaian public at least let's look at the exigency of the situation at the time which situation he echoed and we captured in our report don't know we're standing as a committee we said like going forward in a situation like this engage yourself select committee on health engage them at least come to parliament right you wrote to edgy but you read to edgy after you assigned a contract so next time don't do this how else could we have been both to tell the minister that look on these areas these were our problems but at the same time people are quoting us out of context people are creating their own meanings people are taking it outside of remit of what we did and that's i think all right it's unfortunate thank you thank you correct and thank you uh mr fear making and kofi i'm coming to you please remember we are we have moved on from this subject because he doesn't want to go any further in it because it's a matter pending in court even though we know you could find a way around it without uh getting into any trouble in the court so let's stay on the saglim housing project what's what's your view if you were to explain to any ordinary person what has happened and why you think something must happen what will you say well um alex is really tempting us but i'll listen to you so on let me um my view is that we we need to never lose sight of the fact that we fail a lot in leadership and honestly that is the biggest problem we have in this country i say this because we all have to work hard at trying to prevent repetitions of the same mistakes and then again part of the failure has to do with how long it takes for us to get back and try and correct things in the process a lot is lost on the specific issue of sacrament it has been five years since this government took office what is the reason i know the response would be oh we're investigating the matter that tells you that there is a problem with record-keeping in our governance system because if somebody took 200 million dollars of state funds in fact money we didn't have but we borrowed and you need five years to find how they used it we have a problem and we should try not to repeat it and i'm going to use this to make this point there are still ministers in this government and some members from jubilee house who use private emails to conduct government business it is wrong i don't know how to express that it is wrong but back to the issue why should it take five years when you have said lemmy sitting there everybody can see the project was not finished then another aspect of this this is patently the failure of parliament to monitor and police its own approvals and that failure arises from the approval process itself if parliament says go and spend x amount of money to do why there should not be any room for the officer in charge to spend more than that or less and to use it for a different thing here is a case where what parliament approved is not what was done and nobody did anything about it now we are stuck with this problem so parliament really needs to be up and doing concerning these things there are many other examples of similar things happening so sadly it's another case of a total failure of our governance system okay i won't go into the issues of corruption or whatever it is i just think that people may choose to be corrupt but if we build a solid enough system it will be very risky and if we have a good enough system it can be easy to you know expose them and then we'll swiftly deal with them we have sufficient institutions we just had a new special prosecutor it is not a lack of institutions to prosecute them the problem again comes from what we just discussed where people in leadership seem to defend and prevent accountability on the path of persons who hold public office samson nobody is forced to go into public office nobody is begged to go to public office people beg they pay and they kill and force themselves to go into public office so if we are requiring of them to do what public officers must do they must go under that rule otherwise you leave that place so my issue of struggle is what is the state of our governance that leads us into this multi-million dollar kind of situation and why does it take us five years and if we are going to pursue succulents okay how do we excuse things like what we just discussed and go and pursue sacrament the way we are doing the same rules the same things that happen in sacramento in principle are the same things going on today in many different places so we need to take a very grand look not at the specific issues but are the broad issues so the initial intention was to build 5 000 housing units and make them as we call affordable so that we'll resume reduce the housing deficit and then ghanaians can have some bit of comfort eventually we have done 668 housing units these have been completed but as we have been told they are not habitable they continue to sit they continue to sit and face the vagaries of the weather and everything and will deter it even further as uh ayaga recently went to show us is there is is there a problem if the government you know went in to ensure that what is there we can use it whilst it is pursuing those suspects did any wrong or you think that would compromise the case in any way no i don't think to compromise the case if it is properly done and it can be done okay so for me it is really sad that we leave those things there to be rotten but again it comes down to what did parliament approve and who made the decision to change it and why was it that that person could make that decision without any kind of repercussion and why has it taken us so long now you have a situation where it is possible that we could have made those things habitable by the way they have not been completed that's why they are not habitable and still the lord have taken this course the issue now comes again too it seems and i'm trying to pick my words well but it seems that a lot of the problems that we face in governance have to do with procurement and specifically the procurement issues arise when there is some gain which is personal or parochial in nature on the other hand if you have a case like suckling and there is a problem but there is no gain that can be gotten out of fixing the problem something will be slapped there to rocks trust me we will get very speedy resolution of circular mix issue if we put out another contract to fix it and then people are going to jockey around that contract and in the name of trying to fix it we are going to go through another slew of procurement i am still on the issue of leadership and what our motivations are so i think that should have been possible if we were thinking about the solution solving the housing crisis to have fixed agreements problem and dealt with the fallout with the corruption etcetera on another level but it's been abandoned for five years and one of the theories is that well unless we issue another contract where there will be all kinds of new procurements around it that problem is not going to be solved i am urging our leaders to please be minded about solving real problems that our people can benefit from but it goes back to the route how do we give these authorizations how do we police them and honestly i keep talking about parliament civil society for instance has become too important because parliament doesn't seem to always be on the beat this is one of those examples so please we need to deal with this matter first city that these houses are completed okay and people get to use them and we need to go to how it is that it takes five years to deal with these things and i don't have any problem with the matter being in court and you can see i haven't commented about the content of it let the court process go through properly but let us use the same rule for everyone then gradually we will get to a point where we are running this country properly um do i have something on the line okay um hariyam sin thank you very much once again for making time to join us um how is your assessment of this issue and how must we handle it in such a way that we still can reap whatever is left of what we have well thank you very much and um i think i will i will go back to the point that uh kofi made about the role of parliament and the last time i was on this show i i had course to talk about the need for us to have a parliamentary budget office that will allow parliament to have better oversight of what it approves for the executive to do with the past or the treasury of the country but i want us to look at three and one because if you raise that issue uh uh affair marking not that in agreement that you they need to police and check and monitor their own uh approvals yes please go on yes yes okay so for me there are three issues and the first has to do with the timeline and the focus that we've had about what decisions were made who made what those decisions and by what authority and what is clear is that this process that went through cabinet went through parliament um got advice from the government's legal advices and so on and so forth is raven with dispute because the attorney general disputes the validity of the variations made by ministers the attorney general disputes the authority of appointees and civil servants um to act on on those variations there's disputable the locals of the ghana institution institute of surveyors in conducting the value for money audit there is even dispute over aesl itself because on one hand it was project consultants throughout the implementation and then is now the validator of the ghana institute of surveyor's audit in some circumstances you would say that aesl is now marking itself it all points to a great dishonest political dissonance because on the one hand saglamy is seen as belonging to one political group and like you've said it can be fixed like kofi has said it can be fixed but it has now become a political football and it should not be because 600 families need homes and they could be housed at the moment if we had used 2017 to 2020 to solve the 32 million deficit obviously we spent more than that buying vehicles so we don't have an issue but it is the politics that is also dragging this matter there is also dissonance in the working relationship between the ministry and the government's own legal advices because they took advice before they signed the contract somehow did not take advice when were varying the contract at least that is what the documents tell us so we do have an issue it is a matter of how the civil service under the political guidance is working with the government's own legal advices then we have the issue of the industry player grader is crying every day for to be involved but grader is constantly um you know left aside we have a problem and that has to do with dissonance and that is the reason why we have all these disputes that are going to be devastating and i promise you it's not just psychology the last time we're talking about energy contracts is the same symptoms the same diagnosis now i come to the issue of governor we went to credit suisse as a country gave a purpose and took a loan while we decided to vary the purpose of the loan we did not go back to the lender so what happens if a shareholder of credit suisse sues the bank how would the bank respond towards ghana and how would that affect tanner's own credit worthiness and last time i was on the program i talked about the same issue garner's credit worthiness it behooves on all the actors whether political or in the civil service to ensure that this is sacrosanct and protect and it's not happening it ought to be mandatory that if they have if the attorney general has given advice on the project and is being changed the advice must be shot again in any case an epc was signed it clearly stated 5000 units and yes the escrow management agreement also said something different how did that conflict occur if we address these things we can begin to cure these problems but lastly let me talk about a very important issue for ghana and that has to do with our own national housing policy we drafted it in 2013 launched it in 2015. it had eight policy objectives 50 policy initiatives eight special initiatives that were dealing with the access of women the disabled the aged low-income households and the issue of knowledge transferring the industry but to today nothing has happened it was launched in 2015 we are in 2021. we still don't have local private sector participation in delivering housing in any manner that is significant we still don't have a conducive atmosphere a climate for providing rental housing today if you provide rental house the government sends you a tax bill instead of giving you a tax rebate and rewarding you for helping to relieve the pressure it sends you a tax bill not a tax rebate why would you have a policy sit on it for six years and not make it work for the country we've talked about accelerating home improvement and home expansion so that we can reduce the pressure tell me what is in place now to help people expand their homes legally properly within the rules it doesn't exist but we are fighting over sag-letting but i tell you that these three things that i have talked about alone can provide more than certainly can provide more than the 600 um also homes that suddenly um you know today has we would have done many times more we talked in the policy about increasing access for the poor where are we going to increase access for the poor if we are not allowing the local private sector to participate if we are not rewarding private people for providing housing if we are not making it possible for them to expand their homes we also said in that policy we will upgrade our slums ask me which slums have been upgraded in such a way that they remain affordable to the poor so i think that we tickle ourselves and we pretend that we are laughing sadly me is not the issue because for 32 million dollars you could have saw sadly five years ago the issue is not cycling as for the legal matters they can be resolved but i think that we are not mindful of the governance issues and we are not mindful of resolving the governance issues if we were we would not go to credit suisse and vary the the purpose of the loan without anybody being aware of it if we were we would not be in a situation today where we have trade contracts around four contracts are around one project and they don't agree they don't see the same thing it is a problem it is not political all right this is a matter of governance it is a matter of how our political leaders themselves understand their role to ensure continuity and the security of the pests the past has become a football the past has become equipped that is used to bastardize everything that is done before one party comes into power um you know and to justify um political action and it is wrong all right for 32 million we would have solved saglerme but we have dragged it and made it a political issue and i think that you know people should ask questions of of our political leaders that why is it that we have 32 million to spend on vehicles but not 32 million to spend on low-income house it is wrong that's a very very important question to ask and i'll go to sami for just about five minutes and then we take a break return to my guest in the studio now i need to mention that in reference to the case where uh martin we were referring to wyoming wyoming uh the substance of that case we must understand was not william but rather waterville uh wyoming clearly had no contract with the state or with government he rather as found by the court was fraudulently seeking to ride on or behind the waterville contracts we need to bring that clarity to bear so that we don't forget the wyoming fraud was targeted and dealt with by the supreme court initially the supreme court even disregarded it uh saying that the high court was seized with it and therefore uh it was a criminal matter to be dealt with so i just needed to put that out and on that note let me say that uh those of you who have been expecting and asking where abdul malikubako is you know that he somehow is able to tie his leave period with the lawyers and the courts so the courts are on break as in the superior court in august and september so you can be assured abdel malek is also on break when he returns you can always expect him on the show now sami listening to the expect listening to uh mr yamsen i mean how did we come by this variation of what we are going to beg for without recourse to those who are paying for it thank you very much um first of all i think we are acknowledged that this matter is subjudic it's spending before a court of competent jurisdiction and so even as i try to explain our side of the story i'll be careful not to prejudge that matter first of all i don't see any variation i have not seen any evidence of any variation of what parliament approved because if you look at the hanzad of 31st october 2012 which captures what transpired in parliament when this loan agreement was considered an approved it was very clear that the loan amount of 200 million dollars was supposed to be used for the construction of 5 000 housing units and it is also very clear from the proceeding that parliament was told that these 5 000 housing units will not be constructed at the goal this is captured in black and white at column 457 of the hands out of 31st october 2012. now if you look at the west agreement what is called the epc agreement executed on 4th january 2013 by honorable ec minister and you look at all the amended and restated agreements three of them one under on robocalling zelda one in 2016 and one dated thirty-five july 2017 under the occupational government the objective to build five thousand housing unit was maintained through act it was not valid so what do you have currently at the site which is thousand four hundred and twelve thousand you fully constitute the first day of the project and nobody has said that the project was going to end at this one in fact if you look at the epc agreement paragraph four or above each message says that proceeds from phase one would be used to finance future cities and so i don't really get it when people say that um what parliament you said you said you just referred you just referred to which of the agreement i i am seeing the paragraph five or so that you refer to i see the faces there where it says that the layout is for the last one four faces yes that is paragraph five but check the last line of paragraph four okay before you get to that paragraph paragraph four whereas so you check the last line say i have seen i've seen that yes i've seen that you're right please god you're right the lord shall be responsible for marketing of the project and will deposit all pre-sale amounts into a stipulated depleted account for use in funding payments under the project for future faces right you understand so parliament said use the money to construct i mean five thousand housing units honorable easy message messer executes this epc agreement says that yes we are constructing five thousand units but we'll do so in four pieces the only amendment honorable collins though that did to this agreement was to reduce the number of paces from four to three thereby shortening the duration but the objective that five thousand housing units were going to be built but that same could not be built at the goal and that same we're going to be built in face this was very clear for me did not in any way contravene so is it is there another understanding that the loan amount was for the 5 000 units yes the loan amount was for the 5 000 units and if you look at the epd agreement and how much and how much has gone into the the the the 600 668 that we have you see what parliament approved were the terms and conditions of the loan under article 181 parliament did not approve a wax agreement so issues about mode of implementation mode of the construction and all that could not have been considered or approved or detected by parliament because those were captured in the west agreement which was executed first once to the approval of the loan agreement you understand i'm saying that in principle parliament said build five thousand hours with 200 billion dollars but number one you check column 437 that was based on indicative prices number two at the same column for 337 of the hands out of 31st october 2012 that excluded the cost of infrastructure like roads drainage seaweed and all other ancillary facilities that could make the police habitable and commercially viable and that number three parliament was told by honorable east dimension at column 457 that we are not going to build all these houses at a goal but over a period of time and i'm saying that so if he executes a west agreement press one to this loan agreement then says that yes i'll build a 5 000 but i am now incorporating the cost of infrastructure which you did not take into consideration i'm now incorporating the cost of rules seawitch and dream and so i can only build a 5 000 in phases i will use the proceeds of the first list to finance future species and still deliver the 5 000 houses without government injecting any new funds i don't see anything wrong with that number two my point is that was continent notified of this arrangement was parliament carried along the answer is emphatically yes check page 4 of the vhm consultancy report that they generated for the ministry or the they prepared for the ministry of western housing which your producer sent to me and in fact that reflects the findings of the rms okay consultancy report as well if you check before and you look at the key um let me yeah i'm sorry but uh uh i have to take a break here uh this is news file brought to you by bank of africa strong as a group and closes a partner mtn everywhere you go ashasi university educating ethical and entrepreneur leaders for africa robert and son seeing is believing way lead home is where one starts from star assurance your solid partner euro plus where euro plus goes water flows dbs industries and mg auto trading official distributors of md vehicles in ghana we'll be right back [Music] welcome back you're still here on news file this is your most authoritative news analysis platform and here on news file we put ghana first and my outfit is by habils couture and habil scooter is found at adriana thank you very much for your making says the dress is nice they are very good at it and they give it to you at very affordable prices you'll be surprised so just call zero two hundred zero two hundred eight four one nine eight eight zero two hundred eight four one nine eight eight hubble's qatar and you will get the best kaftans whatever you want thank you very much sami under one minute conclude your point and let me come to my guest in the studio so in one minute my point is what parliamentar food was not varied and that when the decision was taken to construct the 5 000 houses in uni the parliamentary committee of finance and housing were duly treated on 23rd may 2014 and that information can be found at 84 of the v18 report that you yourself sent us if you check the last rule is this presentation of the project and visited to the site by parliamentary committees of tenants and housing again paragraph 529 of the 2018 budget statement which was approved by parliament indicates that the project was being done in phases and that this one was made up of thousand five hundred and two housing units which was our 75 percent complete accomplishing and parliament julie approved that so this whole notion that parliament has proved something and somebody unilaterally vary that without parliament thank you very much i said under one minute and i meant it yes sir martin what can you say briefly about this okay so it's good that um at least there's going to be a trial so that's the beauty of the rule of law at least and more importantly that the duty bearers are listening to people like harry anson excellent excellent good yes so that at least it is a a reminder to our current ministers that hey every anything you're doing in office now just be minded that well you can face the same uh kind of trial i mean that's accountability so it's a good trial let it go on i mean and then we'll see the fact of the matter is that we had signed to do 5 000 housing units within 18 to 24 months so it's not about faces right yeah okay um i think that uh very unfortunately we have we have just unfortunately ran out of time i wanted actually to go to harry for very final words but unfortunately this where we will draw the curtains thank you so very much uh my guests have been alexander kwamina athena marking who is mp a future and deputy majority leader of parliament submitting fee national communications officer national democratic congress ndc martin pebu is a lawyer and rice activist coffee bento lawyer and senior vice president imani africa harry yamsen fellow soledra ghana uh thank you all so very much uh god willing tomorrow 2 p.m make time with me on the law i'll be hosting chris or say about on the bedding of dual citizens it was interesting last week let's have a part two tomorrow 2 p.m thank you so very much thank you

Channel: JoyNews

Views: 17,044

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Keywords: Newsfile on Joy News (14-8-21), Ghana Politics, NPP, NDC, National Budget, Economy, Constitution, Election, campaign, joy News, News file, Current Affairs, matters arising, Samson Lardi

Id: rSIcEkR_YWc

Length: 158min 26sec (9506 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021