The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Wednesday grilled officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and an auctioneer to the ministry for contravening the auction laws.
The auctioneer, Alex Agyei, side-stepped all the laws governing the proper disposal of government vehicles and disposed off 24 vehicles of the ministry at ridiculously low prices.
Most of the vehicles, including pickups and large SUVs were sold to staff. The auctioneer pocketed GHc33,203 as his 7% commission on the sale of the vehicles.
Some of the vehicles were auctioned at GHc1,000 each.
A Nissan Patrol S/W with registration GV 1285 U was auctioned for GHc4,000.
A Nissan double cabin pick-up with registration GV 1481 U, was also sold at GH¢2,000, while a Mitsubishi double cabin pick-up went for GH¢1,000.
A Galaxy motorcycle was sold at GH¢30.00, while FY motorcycle was also sold at GH¢50.00.
According to the performance audit report of the Auditor-General on the disposal of the unserviceable government vehicles, the auctioneer has been engaged with an appointment letter by the disposing entity.
The terms of reference specified included the publication of the auction in a newspaper of wide circulation, the period within which the auction should be carried out, the account into which the auction proceeds are to be paid, and the period of which the proceeds are to be paid.
According to the Auditor-General, all these were not followed and above all, the vehicles were exclusively sold to employees at the ministry, which is contrary to Section 1.8 of the Guidelines for Disposal of Goods and Equipment, which states,
“In the interest of promoting fair dealing and openness, Procurement Entities must not sell assets to staff unless arising from a public competitive process.â€
The Director of Agriculture Engineering Services Department of the ministry, George Brantuo and Alex Agyei, who were directly or indirectly involved in the sale of the vehicles, apologized profusely to the committee for not following the laid-down procedure in the disposal of the said vehicles.
The auctioneer, Alex Agyei
The auctioneer, whose demeanour and constant giggles to serious questions angered most committee members, saidthe vehicles had already been allocated to the staff of MoFa at the prices even before he started the process.
The auctioneer was faulted for not paying the monies realized from the sale of the vehicles into government chest in time, and also for not paying withholding tax on the commission he got from the auction.
According to the committee, the auctioneer sold some of the vehicles in July 2013, and kept the money for more than one year before paying it into government chest.
There was an instance when the money was kept with him for more than 20 months.
The ranking member of the committee, Kingsley Aboagye-Gyedu, suggested that since the auctioneer earned his commission without ‘working’ for it, he should be made to refund the money to the state.
Mr Alex Agyei, however pleaded with the committee to forgive him for the ‘mistake’ because he had learned his lesson and would not repeat such a mistake again in the discharge of his duties.
Source: Daily Guide
Â