Contractors Pay Bribe…Before Having Tender Documents Accepted

Some members of the Association of Road Contractors of Ghana (ASROC,) have tasked government to, as a matter of urgency, take the necessary steps to stop the continuous ill-treatment meted out to them by some officials at Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System, (GIFMIS).

The road contractors alleged that some personnel of GIFMIS had been extorting huge sums of monies from them [contractors] before processing their tender documents, and that any contractor who failed to heed their [GIFMIS personnel] demand is delayed or denied.

The livid contractors who disclosed this at a-day seminar organised by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department for contractors and suppliers on GIFMIS in Accra noted that the negative development at GIFMIS did not auger well for the promotion of cordial relations between the two institutions.

And not even the presence of the Acting Controller and Accountant General, Madam Grace Adzroe, GIFMIS Project Coordinator, Mrs. Margaret Sefa and GIFMIS Project Manager, Baah Adadey at the seminar could prevent the contactors from exposing GIFMIS personnel for what they described as “create, loot and share.”

Also in attendance at the seminar were the National Chairman of Association of Road Contractors of Ghana, Mr. Joseph Ebo Hewton, Commissioner-General of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA,) George Balnkson, Chief Executive Officer of Public Procurement Authority, and some Directors of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

The contractors continued that the unprofessional conduct of GIFMIS officers was rather threatening the security of the contractors.

According to them, to avoid being victims of harassment and embarrassment at the hands of these unscrupulous GIFMIS officers, many contactors ought to seek assistance from top hierarchy of the national administration to mediate between them and GIFMIS officers before they could submit their tendering documents.

“Much as we would not like to be seen as interfering in, or dictating to the personnel of GIFMIS officers we cannot sit down idle,” they said.

When Today reached the National Chairman of ASROC, Mr. Joseph Ebo Hewton, he described that acts as a ‘negative and disgusting’.

He called on government to institute investigations into the matter and punish those found culpable in the alleged corrupt act.

The direct effect of that situation, he said, would be the near collapse of the nation’s economy, a situation which the government had responsibility to prevent.

But GIFMIS Project Coordinator, Mrs. Margaret Sefa denied the allegations outrightly but assured that her outfit will conduct an investigation into the matter.

Source: Today