The Republic newspaper has unearthed plots by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to spring series of bogey reports into the public domain in an attempt to discredit various development projects being undertaken by the John Dramani Mahama led administration.
This paper has intercepted one of such reports aimed at whipping up public sentiments that the multi-million dollar Kwame Nkrumah and Kasoa interchange project has been over-priced (US$172 million).
The report titled QUALITY ASSURANCE ISSUE DATA is purported to have been submitted to the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA)
However, the authenticity of the purported report prepared by one Laverne Dimitrov has come under sharp focus because it is claimed that the report was submitted to DBSA on 18 July 2015, even though April 2015 has barely ended.
This is the ?expert? document Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, the flagbearer of the NPP reportedly relied on in November 2014 when he claimed the contract sum of the Kwame Nkrumah civil works had been unduly inflated to line the pockets of government officials.
A similar tactic was deployed by Akufo Addo?s running-mate (Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia) recently when he claimed, during a public lecture at the Central University College that the African Development Bank (AfDB)has categorized Ghana among run-down countries like Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia and Zimbabwe among its list of loan defaulters.
As it turned out, the AfDB has since rebutted such a report, officially releasing a statement saying that Ghana had, at no point defaulted on it loan repayment obligations to it.
This paper has gathered that several such ?doctored? reports are available with the NPP as they await the ?right time? to release them to gain political capital run up to the 2016 elections.
Until this expose, the NPP is said to have been prepping it communication horde to go to town with the content of the document which includes the fact that the project has been overdesigned, overpriced and no value for money assessment was made before the contract was awarded to Brazil-based Queiroz Galvao.
According to the report set to be brandished by the NPP, the highest the project should have grossed is US$120 million; ? We can confirm that no economic value-for-money assessment were done, but recommend that an independent reviewer take action on this. Given the complexity, we should get the final price of the project before we proceed to the highest credit committees,? the report stated.
In a statement akin to the NPP script by communicators discrediting the project, the DBSA report stated. ?There is evidence of rising public dissention against GoG over this project,? saying that the Government of Ghana never explored cheaper options for the project.
?The design report should typically describe all reasonable alternatives that have been considered?after describing each of the alternatives that were proposed, an explanation is required why reasonable alternatives were omitted or dismissed from further consideration. Where operational and safety concerns are some of the reasons the alternatives are rejected, the DUR may need operational and/ or safety analyses for those alternatives,? the report stated.
The NPP has been criticized for unnecessarily criticizing projects undertaken by the Mahama administration in a bid to merely winning political capital over its main opponent run up to the elections.
Source: The Republic
