The Northern Development Authority’s (NDA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr. Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, two of his assistants, Mr. Stephen Yir-eru Engmen and Mr. Patrick Seidu, as well as Mr. Andrew Kuundaari, the Chief Executive of A&QS Consortium Limited, have all been charged by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) with conspiring to improperly influence the procurement process in order to win a contract.
Mr. Stephen Yir-eru Engmen has been charged with additional two (2) counts of the same offense, while Mr. Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, Mr. Patrick Seidu, and Mr. Andrew Kuundaari have each been charged with one additional count of directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract.
“The four persons will be arraigned before the High Court (Criminal Division), Tamale on Tuesday 31 January 2023,” a statement from the Special Prosecutor indicated.
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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo recently fired Patrick Seidu and Mr. Stephen Yir-eru Engmen, the two deputy CEOs of NDA.
In June of last year, the Special Prosecutor started looking into allegations of corruption and offenses related to corruption at the NDA about a contract awarded to A&Q’s Consortium.
The contract was awarded to A&Q’s Consortium for consultancy services under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme.
Mr. Martin Luther Kpebu, a private attorney, submitted the complaint and asked that NDA’s operations and the conduct of its CEO and board chairman be looked at.
The complaint alleged that NDA awarded a contract to A&QS Consortium Limited (hereafter, A&QS) on 28 January 2020 for consultancy services for the supervision of some constituencies in the Upper West Region under the IPEP for the contract sum of Five Million Seven Hundred and Twenty Thousand cedis (GH¢5,720,000.00).
“However, upon the exit of the then Acting Chief Executive who executed the contract, the contract sum was illegally increased to Ten Million Four Hundred Thousand cedis (GH¢10,400,000.00) by the removal of the page containing the original figure of Five Million Seven Hundred and Twenty Thousand cedis (GH¢5,720,000.00) and its replacement at page 25 clause 33.1 of the contract with a fresh page containing the bloated figure of Ten Million Four Hundred Thousand cedis (GH¢10,400,000.00) to make it appear as if it is the contract executed by the previous Acting Chief Executive.”
Source: Citinews
