(The Evening News) - Following complaints of financial impropriety in the award of contracts at the Tema Municipal Assembly, (TMA) the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has appointed a five-member committee to investigate the issue.

This follows a directive by the National Security Council for the Minister to institute a probe into the alleged malfeasance. The committee, headed by the Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Captain Nkrabea Effah-Dartey has began its work.

At the centre of the saga is the Tema Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Evans Ashong Narh, who is alleged to have awarded three contracts totaling ?1.2 billion without the notice of the Municipal Tender Board. The contract sum of ?1.2 million is also far above the approved ceiling which the Municipal Assembly can legally award.

The committee has already began work and over the weekend visited Tema and interviewed a number of people and Assemblymen. It also visited the Kpone refuge dump where the Municipal Chief Executive awarded a contract for fumigation of refuge at the cost of ?810 million.

Other issues under investigation by the Effah-Dartey Committee includes the contract of the valuation of property in which an amount of ?106 million has already been paid to the Land Valuation Board. Another issue is the award of the TMA’s computerisation project which was given to A5 Consultancy Service.

An ad hoc sub-committee of the TMA’s Finance and Administration (F&A) Committee, which investigated the awards of the three contracts described it as sordid and added that none of the three passed through the appropriate channel for approval by the Executive Committee of the TMA, the Municipal Tender Board or General Assembly. The contracts are also not in the annual budget of the Assembly.

The chairman of the ad hoc sub-committee, Mr Titus Glover when contacted, told the Evening News that the committee had submitted its report to the F&A committee and forwarded a copy to Mr Narh about a month ago. According to Mr Glover, although the F&A had invited the Municipal Chief Executive to answer certain queries raised in the report, he has refused to meet them.

He said the Chief Executive claimed the sub-committee did not seek clearance from him before carrying out the investigations. Portions of the report made available to the Evening News asked the Chief Executive and the contractor for the fumigation project, Victombet Company Limited to refund 50 per cent of the contract sum since the amount was bloated. The report also questioned the actual contract sum of ?562 million for the valuation of property rates claiming the figure is too high.