Some 234 vehicles out of the list of over 700 vehicles presented to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), are missing, Chairman of the Asset and Vehicles Committee for the NPP’s side of the transition team, Ayikoi Otoo has confirmed.
Speaking to journalists at the Jubilee House on the missing cars, Mr. Otoo, who had earlier refused to comment on the back and forth over the missing cars saga, further indicated that the task-force mandated to search for the cars also discovered some 67 other cars that were not listed in the handing over notes.
“We were able to identify 67 vehicles not listed, and so if you deduct the 67 vehicles from the 301 missing vehicles, we still have 234 vehicles that could not be accounted for so the figure that came from Mr. Arhin’s office is correct, and if they want me as the Chair to confirm I am confirming, and I am saying the figure is over 200.”
This figure confirms with what the Director of Communications at the Presidency, Eugene Arhin had earlier revealed.
His claims suggested that some officials of the immediate past NDC government were in possession of 200 vehicles belonging to the state.
But the NDC subseuquently disputed claims, saying government duly handed over all state vehicles to the new government.
A former Deputy Minister of Communication under the erstwhile NDC government, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, said the claims about the missing cars could not be true, insisting that everything was accounted for in the list presented to the new administration.
“The claim that this vehicles cannot be found is completely untrue to the extent that they [NPP] are unable to tell you what specific vehicles they cannot find. We have given you a list, the vehicles are parked at specific places that you are aware of and you unable to say they registration number and chassis number of the missing vehicles.”
“It is when they are able to provide this specific information that we will be able to cross reference with the list that we gave them and then those vehicles will be looked for if they are indeed missing. But at this stage and as far as we are concerned, every vehicle that we need to account for, we have done, and the onus is on them to provide very specific information,” Kwakye Ofosu earlier stated.
It appears however, that majority of these unaccounted cars were among the ones that were bought by members of the outgoing government.
This was the claim made by NDC Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Samuel George. The MP speaking on Citi FM’s ‘The Big Issue’, said that about 271 of the vehicles allegedly missing from the President’s vehicle pool, were purchased by some officials of the former government.
According to Same George, although he declined to purchase the vehicle allocated to him while serving as a Presidential staffer under the former government, some of his colleagues bought theirs after the vehicles were duly properly valuated by the State Transport Company.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
