Former Roads and Highway Minister Joe Gidisu requested and received a BMW saloon vehicle valued at $160.503,76 from the contractors of the Achimota-Ofankor highway in Accra to enable him inspect the project, it has emerged.
According to a report by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, the project which has exceeded its original budget by over 200% has been riddled with too many unrelated expenditure, key among which is the buying of the BMW car for then minister.
The report also accused the Ghana Highway Authority of demanding for the renovation of their CEO’s office from the contractors.
“Items considered to be unrelated expenditure; cardinal among them was the purchase of a BMW- 2010 model saloon car at $160.503,76 with an associated one year insurance. Other expenditure deemed to be unrelated to project are head office backstopping (GHC50,000), psoting allowances for 13 GHA staff transferred to head office (GHC34,764.73): conversion of GHA’s archive base into offices and renovation of CEO’s office (GHC33,225.62) and participation of four staff in Urban transportation course at KNUST (GHC2,400),” the report stated.
On the purchase of the BMW saloon vehicle, “the acting chief executive officer explained that the vehicle was bought for the use of the then minister of roads and highway for the inspection of the project”, the report further stated, adding that, “As at December 2011, the project had exceeded the expected completion date by 25 months and the works was about 88% completed. The estimated cost had already shot up to GHC120m representing an increase of about 217%”.
The revelation left some Members of Parliament (MPs) angered over why the then minister would request for a BMW 7-series instead of a pickup truck which is often used for such inspections, starrfmonline reported.
The project is Government of Ghana funded and is being executed by the China Railway Wuju (group) corporation.
