There were intermittent heated exchanges between Roads and Highways Minister Joe Gidisu and the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Albert Kan Dapaah on Wednesday.
The exchanges were at a hearing by the Committee towards unraveling why Construction Pioneers (CP) inflated certain payment certificates which were different from the negotiated amounts agreed between the Government of Ghana and CP.
The smuggled inflated figures consistently appeared on the first seven consecutive certificates for payment by the government of Ghana to CP concerning the construction of the Biriwa-Takoradi road.
The Committee Chairman had earlier pointed out in previous hearings that the Government of Ghana overpaid CP 48 million Deutschmarks in 2001 as expatriate supervision fees for the road.
The amount, which was not part of the bill of quantities, was detected in 2001 by the then Director of the Ghana Highways Authority B L T Sakibu who told the committee on Thursday that he insisted the Government of Ghana paid the right negotiated bill of quantities rather than the smuggled bills which were never negotiated.
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