<<Print>>

Former Sports Minister under the Kufuor administration, Yaw Osafo Maafo, was subpoenaed in court on Thursday to give evidence in the ongoing criminal case against Alfred Woyome in the payment of the GHC51 judgement debt paid to him. During cross examination by Senior Chief Attorney Cynthia Lamptey, Mr. Maafo stated that about seventy companies bided for the contract to renovate the stadia prior to CAN 2008 but was narrowed down to 12 and further cut to 4. VAMED and M-Power Pack merged into one company and they were given the Takoradi and Tamale stadia to provide an estimate for. According to the Former Minister, cabinet met on the price quotation by VAMED and M-Power Pack which was higher than the budget of the Government. VAMED and M-Power Pack quoted a high estimate for Takoradi and Tamale stadia 67 and 60 million dollars respectively. But government had a 40 million dollar budget and terminated the companies. Subsequently according to Mr. Maafo, Government wrote to VAMED and M-Power Pack to terminate the tender process. Mr. Maafo reiterated that the tender process canceled could in no way be described as an abrogation of contract since it was still at the tendering stage. Mr. Maafo subsequently produced a letter which according to him was received from VAMED as a response to the letter abrogating the tender process. The Legal team of Alfred Woyome objected to the letter saying it should come from the proper quarters, but the objection was overruled by the judge. The response letter from VAMED �Referring to your letter dated August 22, 2005 which we got handed over September 1 by Mr. Alfred Woyome the alternate director of M - Power -Pack we would like to make the following clarifications That VAMED engineering is a company which is active in the sector of health care only and has no qualification and no interest in the award of contract for stadia projects. 2. When we got informed that there are hospital projects in relation with CAN 2008 we immediately made an interest for 6 hospitals in 2003 which finally led to the signing of six contracts which have not yet become effective due to the lack financing of the hospitals. 3. Parallel to VE-VAMED however juridically and economically independent of these activities the Australian company VA-TECH made an offer for the stadia project relevant to CAN 2008. 4. These contracts and VA offer were based on the assumptions that the hospital and stadia projects will be financed by Ghana National Petroleum Corporation. When we learnt in June 2005, that only the stadia project but not the hospital projects will be implemented, VAMED stopped the search of alternative financing for all the afore projects. Consequently we (VAMED) will like to inform you that VAMED is not and was never in the consortium with Waterville; therefore in our opinion the letter dated August 22nd 2012 should have been addressed to Waterville. Furthermore we will like to inform you that VAMED has not initiated and is not INVOLVED IN a PROTEST OF Waterville�s lawyers against the awards of most of the stadia projects to the Chinese company. After the cross examination Chief state attorney Cynthia Lamptey said she was unwell and case was adjourned to 17 of July.