Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and
other state agencies are battling Africa Automobile Limited (AAL) over supply
and maintenance services of Mitsubishi vehicles in the 1990s.
The vehicle dealer has secured huge sums running
into million of cedis as judgement debts after it successfully sued the
Attorney-General and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.
However, the AAL’s action appear to have ruffled the
feathers of the state institutions including the BNI, Valuation Division of the
Land Commission, Ghana Urban Roads as well as Immigration Service most of whom are
disputing the amounts attributed to them.
Justice Yaw Apau, the Court of Appeal judge sitting as
the Sole-Commissioner yesterday even wondered how AAL secure judgement debt
from the government and not attach the institutions that had received the
vehicles to the suit.
The first to appear was the BNI whose Head of
Finance Godfred Agyapong told the commission that “so far as our records are
concerned, we do not owe African Automobile Limited.”
He said “we did not owe them at the time they were
going to court.”
Explaining how AAL might have initiated the action,
Mr. Agyapong said that the BNI purchased 3 Pajero vehicles from them in 1995
saying “we did not have any facility agreement with them but we have some
statements and correspondence that suggested that we had purchased vehicles.”
He AAL submitted a statement dated 8th
June 2001 indicating that the BNI was indebted to them in the areas of workshop
services and supply and they asked them to come for reconciliation of the
figures but they never showed up.
“Based on our response, they sent us notes to the
statement on the schedule of payment before we received a letter from the
Auditor-General on the same matter on June 22, 2004.”
He then tendered in evidence all documents involving
the transaction with AAL saying “we have fully settled them. As far as we are
concerned, we do not owe them.”
When asked by Dometi Kofi Sorpkor, counsel for the
commission if it was the case that BNI was owing AAL over GH¢400,000, Mr.
Agyapong said that “we paid subsequently in March 2000 and it reflected in the
2001 statement.”
However, when the BNI officer was asked to produce
receipt of the payment he said “we may have receipts but they are not here. We
have to search through our archives to retrieve them. We might be able to bring
something by the end of the week.”
“We had a small challenge. We have asked our people
to comb through the archives to retrieve the receipts for this transaction and
they are still searching.”
“We need to trace the files first to determine
whether we purchased the vehicles directly or it came through the National
Security Council.”
Mr. Agyapong said that the whole issue surrounded
the the interest accrued and added that some of the billings were not realistic
per the analysis of the statement from AAL.
He also said that even in cases where they withheld
the 5 per cent tax and paid directly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) it
did not reflect in AAL’s statement.
The Valuation Division of the Lands Commission were
the next public institution to testify through its Chief Valuer Kwesi
Bentsi-Enchil.
He denied knowledge about any transaction between
his outfit and AAL saying “we have gone through the records and there is no
transaction established,”
adding “we don’t even have any communication
indicating our indebtedness to AAL.”
The Urban Roads whom AAL is seeking judgement debt
was however, not at the sitting even though Mr. Sorkpor said they were duly
notified.
The Ghana Immigration Service also testified through
Foreigna Owusu Addo who is the Deputy Financial Controller of the service.
He admitted the service took delivery of two
Mitsubishi pick-ups in 1995 but they could not locate the schedule attached to
the agreement letter.
He said documents available indicated that there was
a transfer of ownership of the vehicle to GIS at the DVLA and mentioned the
registrations as GR 1445 F and GV 4842 C.
They subsequently requested for four weeks to enable
them to find more documents for the commission and it was granted.
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