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The Joy News survey revealed that the cost of 350 vehicles purchased in 2016 by the Microfinance and Small Loans Center (MASLOC) for private transport operators cost the state more than 18 million GHS .
This price is higher than the market price of vehicles from the same supplier.
Photo: This bus carrying GPRTU signage was abandoned and overgrown with weeds.
The vehicles were purchased for the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), but the transport operators rejected the vehicles because of alleged price inflation.
Manbadeh Azure Awuni has spent the last seven months investigating the immobilization of various vehicles purchased by the state.
In the first of the series titled Ground wheelsManbadeh has explored why MASLOC vehicles have been parked since 2016.
The 350 vehicles are parked in the National Security Court, behind the Accra International Conference Center in Accra.
Some of the salon cars were completely covered with weeds. Vehicles include 100 Isuzu buses with 33 seats, 100 Chevrolet Sparklite lounge cars and 150 Chevy Aveo salon cars.
MASLOC purchased these vehicles in 2016 for the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, but they rejected them.
Stephen Amoah, president and CEO of MASLOC, said the transport union had rejected the vehicles because they were too expensive.
As part of this investigation, Joy News went to the supplier of the vehicles, Mac Autos and Spareparts Ghana Limited quoted in August 2018, two years after the sale of vehicles to MASLOC.
According to the company, vehicle prices in 2016 are lower than those of 2018, but our investigation revealed that the cost at which the company sold the vehicles to MASLOC in 2016 is far superior the cost at which it was sold to the public in 2018.
For example, Mac Ghana sold the 33seat Bus Izuzu for the general public in 2018 to 79 000 dollars but sold to MASLOC in 2016 to 107 000 dollars, a difference of 28 000 dollars per bus.
The company sold Chevy Sparklite hair salons in 2018 at $ 9,000 but was sold to MASLOC at $ 12,500. By 2018, Mac had stopped selling Chevrolet Aveo car shows, but a month of August 2017 pro forma The company's invoice that JoyNews obtained as part of this survey shows the price of each Chevrolet Aveo vehicle at $ 14,000.
However, the company provided each of the 150 vehicles to Masloc for $ 18 million.
In total, the cost of vehicles sold to MASLOC is higher than the market price of vehicles of at least $ 3,750,000 or 18,375,000 GHc.
Joy News tried several times to talk to MASLOC's CEO, Sedina Tamakloe Ationu, who signed the contract, but we could not convince her to share her comments. When Joy News wrote to MAC Ghana for an answer, the company denied any wrongdoing. MAC Ghana wrote in a letter to Joy News:
"The reasonable difference between the prices of vehicles sold to MASLOC and those sold to the general public was due to the fact that it was not paid in cash, but over a period of two years interest was put on the price what[[[[the]Customs in car purchases. "
The Joy News survey revealed more anomalies with this contract apart from the prices. We obtained a record of all vehicles imported by Mac Ghana from January 2016 to December 2017.
Photos: These vehicles were left in the open air for two years.
We also obtained details of all vehicles released by the company for which duties were paid. When the details of the vehicles provided to MASLOC were searched, the cleared vehicles were not found.
Checks from the Ghana Revenue Authority confirmed that the company did not pay any fees on the vehicles provided to MASLOC. According to the Ghana Revenue Authority, customs duties on the 350 vehicles amounted to 10,500,000 GHS.
Further investigation revealed that the Ministry of Finance had written to waive the company's obligation pending Parliament's approval, which did not happen. Our investigation, however, reveals that the company was not entitled to an exemption from duties in accordance with the terms of the contract.
Article 32 of the contract states: "A supplier is fully responsible for all duties, taxes, royalties, license fees, etc., incurred up to the delivery of the goods under contract to the final destination."
Stephen Amoah, CEO of MASLOC, said the GPRTU had proposed taking the vehicles at a price deemed too low by the government.
GPRTU leaders told Joy News that the union had its own preference for suppliers, but MASLOC insisted on using MAC Ghana. GPRTU says that MASLOC has not discussed the price with or sign a contract with them before importing the 350 vehicles.
Kobina Atta-Bedu, a procurement specialist, said the government had committed a series of anomalies in the deal.
He says that the value of vehicles left in the sun since 2016 will surely decrease by now that MASLOC gets interested buyers.
Some in working order stickers on some vehicles reveal that they were in the country before April 2016.
The fate of the vehicles is not known. What we know is that, whatever the mode of disposal of vehicles ofthe state will sell will have to sell them at a lower price than the one he paid.
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