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MR PRESIDENT, INVESTIGATE
AND PROSECUTE CORRUPTION AT DVLA
Thank you ladies and gentlemen of the media for
showing up at such short notice. We called you here
this afternoon to send a message to the President
about corruption.
It is about the corruption at the DVLA, which thanks
to you the media is now in the public domain. It is
our fear that this matter will become just like the
many cases of corruption, which come out, we talk
about them for a while, until another case comes up
and we move and no action is taken by those
empowered to do so.
The DVLA case is another clear case of “create, loot
and share”. What are the basic facts? In 2006, DVLA
awarded a contract, after a competitive tender, for
the printing of driver’s licenses. The 6-year
contract won by Foto-X was for the total sum of $2.7
million, ending 2012. The services to be provided
per the terms of that contract included re-designing
and refurbishing all DVLA offices across the
country, trainingDVLA staff in the USA and UK,
procuring project vehicles.
The selected contractor, Foto-X, was to pre-finance
the project to be reimbursed over the six year
period of the contract. One year into the contract,
Foto-X approached DVLA asking to be paid additional
money for what they called “consumables.” DVLA
refused to pay because every anticipated cost had
been included in the total contract sum of $2.7
million. Later in 2007 when a new Chief Executive
Officer took office the claimwas presented again by
Foto-X and again rejected by the new CEO.
However in 2009, with a new government in office,
and a new board and CEO in place, the claims for
consumables, which had been twice rejected by the
two previous CEOs, was brought back and readily
approved and paid. These extra payments for
“consumables” continued until the matter came to the
attention of the Auditor-General and subsequently
EOCO. By this time, total payments made to Foto-X
for “consumables” had come up to nearly GHS16
million.
In 2012 the contract was to have come to an end.
But, DVLA decided to renew the contract, which was
supposed to be a BOT (Build Operate and Transfer).
Unlike the original contract under the NPP, and
typical of this NDCgovernment, this new contract was
awarded through sole sourcing, without any
competitive tender.
On top of that, the new sole-sourced
contractactually included less items than the
original contract. However, it was more expensive.
The renewedcontract was for $3.6 million ($900,000
more than the original contract). On top of all
that, not happy with inflating the sum of the
renewed contract by nearly $1 million for doing far
less, the contract was further inflated by nearly
300 per cent.
The CEO of the DVLA at the time managed to see to
the inflation of the contract from $3.6 million to
$9.9 million. This inflated sum was stated both in
words and figures and, therefore, could never have
been a typographical mistake. It is important to
note that this inflation of figures took place after
the sum of $3.6m was rubber-stamped by the Public
Procurement Authority.
It took a patriotic whistleblower and investigative
journalism on the part of Joy FM to save the nation
$6.3 million on a renewed contract that was by
itself hugely inflated.
After 2012, the NDC government appointed a new CEO
for the DVLA. Under this new boss, over GHS4 million
have been paid to Foto-X for driver’s licenses that
have taken years to produce.
This clear case of corruption at the DVLA is typical
of how the NDC government since 2009 has abused the
coffers of the state. Such is the travesty, that
whiles drivers and motor vehicle owners are asked to
pay more and more after each National Budget is read
for keeping their vehicles on the road, the revenues
raised arerather used to fund NDC corruption.
Unfortunately, President John Mahama has shown to be
extremely soft on corruption. In fact, he can be
said to be friendly to corruption. This is because
findings of clear cases of corruption end up with
hardly any prosecution.
• We call on the President to make this DVLA matter
an exception. Let Ghanaians see him turning a new
page on his attitude to corruption. The President
must allow all those who are allegedly implicated in
the corruption at DVLA to be investigated and
prosecuted. The business of “to err is human” should
not be entertained.
• We also want the GHS16 million unjustifiably paid
for “consumables” to be refunded and the culprits
punished.
• Again, we want the GHS4.2 million paid since 2012
for printing of driver’s licences when none was done
for three years to be investigated.
Let the President be seen to be doing something
about corruption before his term expires next
year.The cost of corruption has been such a heavy
toll on ordinary people and business.
Also, we take note of the fact that the 2016 budget
will be read tomorrow. This will be the election
year budget. It makes us justifiably nervous.
Another election year; more corruption; more
reckless spending?
A key aim of the budget/IMF bailout is the control
of public expenditure to avoid the horrendous
experience of reckless spendingwe saw in 2012, which
has brought years of untold hardship on the people,
cost the cedi to fall heavily, collapsed businesses,
created mass unemployment, piled up huge arrears and
debt repayments, all forcing us to go for the IMF in
the first place.
We are skeptical about the2016 budget. We fear a
playback of 2012, where sole sourcing of government
contracts were done, costs of contracts inflated,
all under a deadly culture of “create, loot and
share.”
Let the President show that corrupt officials will
be punished by tackling the cases before him now,
and let him do so before we enter election year,
2016. Ghana deserves better. Our coffers must be
better protected. We beg the President to show
leadership in the fight against corruption and,
particularly, in keeping a lid on inflated,
sole-sourced public contracts. Let him begin with
DVLA today.
Thank you.
Freddie Blay,
Ag National Chairman, NPP
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