Government has made no payment to a UK-based firm for the supply of security infrastructure without parliamentary approval, as alleged by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The party alleged that government has signed a fraudulent deal worth about $300 million for the supply of national security equipment with UK-based firm, Santa Barron.
The NPP further said, government has already paid the UK-based firm $120 million dollars for the supply of the equipment in November without due diligence.
But according to the Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, government has also not made any payments as alleged by the NPP.
Responding to questions on the issue on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Terkper was adamant that “no payment was made, let us establish that fact. Let me state for a fact that no payment was made. No advanced payment was made. I say that for a fact and I challenge anybody.”
His answers align with that of the Chairman of Interior and Defence Committee in Parliament, Fritz Baffour, who described the claims as ridiculous.
According to Mr. Baffour, his committee was not aware of such expenditure given that such a deal would have come before his committee before being initiated.
Without going into details, Mr. Terkper explained that the deal which kicks in 2017 “was medium term plan for the supply of security” that could enhance revenue from peace keeping efforts.
“Instead of buying things ad hoc, the more equipment you have, the more you earn on peacekeeping for example. So we are saying let’s aggregate, let’s buy the revenue in bulk so it can be deployed and then the peace keeping revenues and others can be accrued,” he noted.
On the Finance Ministry’s part, Mr. Terkper noted that, “the step we took was to say the Ministry of Interior must encumber its budget resources for that.”
He also denied claims that the company lacked any track record with Ghana and was “established just yesterday” as purported by the NPP.
“The company is not six months old. The company was actually established in 1993 and has been doing business in Ghana over the years,” the Finance Minister said.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
