Accra (Greater Accra), 7th April ?99 ? The Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the last African Under-20 soccer championship dubbed "Ghana '99" spent over 3.5 billion cedis as organisational expenses for the three-week tournament held at the Accra and Kumasi sports stadiums.

Apart from sitting allowances for the LOC members, almost all other expenditure, like transportation of the eight participating teams and officials, accommodation and feeding were all charged in US dollars contrary to a Bank of Ghana directive that all businesses should be transacted in the local currency.

Mr James Tiigah, Accountant, Ministry of Youth and Sports told this to the Tagoe committee investigating the award of contract for the rehabilitation of the two stadiums at its sitting in Accra on Tuesday. He said that in spite of the directive, all the hotels and transport companies charged their fares in dollars and the LOC was compelled to adhere to it. 55 vehicles, ranging between 60 and 95 dollars a day were hired from Speedway Travel and Tours for the use of CAF officials during the tournament.

On the sitting allowance for LOC members, Mr Tiigah said the chairmen of the co-committees each received 200,000 cedis while the members were each paid 150,000 cedis at every sitting. He could not state the number of times the committee sat.

On the payment of the rehabilitation works at the LOC secretariat he said 186.8 million cedis has so far been paid out of the total of 211 million cedis allocated. Witness said 6.2 billion cedis made of 5.9 billion cedis of contractual works at the Stadiums plus 20 per cent of 1.7 billion cedis being the cost of plastic chairs has been paid to Arab Contractors, contractors of the project.

He said the remaining is covered by a 90-day letters of credit. Mr Tiigah said Twum-Boafo and Partners, Consultants of the stadium rehabilitation, has also been paid 666,757,386 million cedis as consultant fee.