Prince Aminu Saana, Assemblyman for Nkpor Electoral Area of the Ledzokuku-Krowor Municipal Assembly, has dragged Daniel Amartey Mensah, former Chief Executive of the Municipality and aspiring Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, to both the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice and the Economic and Organised Crimes Organization over alleged corruption, conflict of interest and misappropriation of public funds.
According to the complainant, even though the Assembly, between the years of 2011 and 2012, through the utilization of its 2011 District Development Facility, had allocated an amount of GHC 149,600.00 for the purchase of an Ambulance for the Municipal Health Directorate, a caravan vehicle without equipment was what was purchased for the directorate.
He added that between 2011 and 2012, a contract was awarded to a company known as M/S SOFOBI LTD for the rehabilitation of the Teshie Community Library at the cost of GHC 90,950.19 and even though mobilization fund was released to the contractor “under bizarre circumstances” there is no trace of work going on.
“Between 2012 and 1013, Daniel Amartey Mensah unilaterally paid out the assembly’s fund of GHC 40.000.00 to a ghost company by name African Connection, under the pretense of sending 4 delegation to participate in the 9th Focus on Africa: Business and Investment Trade mission in New York U.S.A. As I write to you, the solicitors of the Assembly have difficulty in tracing the whereabouts of the said company…” Mr Saana added in his complaint.
The complaint further claimed that a recent investigation he and other assembly member conducted had allegedly brought to the fore that the fund purportedly paid to African Connections “was paid out under [a]contract weighed down with inconsistencies and suspicious arrangements”, adding “the assembly’s money was deceitfully appropriated by the company in collusion with the former MCE.”
He further claimed in his complaint that in 2012, M/S JOUZZI MENS VENTURES, a company allegedly owned by one Joseph Adjei Mensah, a government appointee to the assembly and an aid to the former MCE, was contracted for the construction of a Kitchen for the School Feeding Programme at a cost of GHC 51,740.80 at Teshie Camp 2, contending that the transaction “contravened article 284 of the 1992 Constitution.”
Another claim against Mr Amartey is that between 2012 and 2013, he “presided over financial misappropriation and embezzling of funds of the assembly by five revenue collectors, who admitted committing the offence and were summarily handed over to the Nungua District Police Command.”
The complainant says he is aggrieved and hurt in his “nationalistic feeling for the assembly that the hard earned financial resources of this country” had been “misappropriated deceptively by an officer of the State paid to protect the financial resources of the state.”
He is therefore seeking a full-scale investigation into the matters alleged in his complaint “and the disclosure of the persons found accountable for the misappropriation and the fraudulent appropriation of State funds and their being held accountable by the State, including repayment to the State of the funds found fraudulently…appropriated.”