Scandal Hits SSNIT

Information available to The New Independent indicates that, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asawase, Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, will soon be invited by newly constituted Board of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to explain the circumstances that may have led to Golden Beach Hotels losing millions of Ghana cedis in what sources describe as wrong investment. Our sources say, the huge loss was incurred when Golden Beach Hotels made an effort to inject funds and recapitalize the hotels. �This is because a clean business opportunity that could have put $2m into the coffers of pensioners within the past one year, was rather ignored and stalled by the Alhaji Muntaka-led Board in managing the Golden Beach Hotels, Ghana,� our source has revealed. Reports indicate that, SSNIT has been caught in a raw deal in the management of the Golden Beach Hotels Ghana, which include the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Elmina Beach Resort and Busia Beach Resort after the authority was misled by some selfish individuals to opt for an unwise investment decision as part of efforts to restructure and put the hotels in the best of shapes for patronage. According to our credible sources, the idea was to move all three hotels from its present state of old chalets to suit modern standards and further build more rooms. From hindsight, it has emerged that, pension funds from SSNIT have become a conduit pipe to perpetuate fraud while pensioners are likely to suffer in the end. Reports suggest that, the immediate past Board members of the Golden Beach Hotels led by Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak, MP for Asawase, proposed to seek partners and investors for the Golden Beach Hotels in 2011 for which two consultants were hired and contracted to look for potential investors and or management companies. The Board wanted investors to lend or inject money into the hotels at an interest and a management company to manage the three hotels with an agreed fee. The Board then gave the two consultants the green light to publish Request For Expressions Of Interest (RFEI) for management and funding for refurbishments. Our credible information is that, several companies responded in an attempt to manage the hotels on behalf of SSNIT but no company responded to invest any money knowing that, the GBH Board was being frivolous in managing the four hotels under them � La Golden Beach Hotel, Elmina Resort, Busia and Labadi Beach. However, a UK based Management and Investment Company, which appeared to be part of the 12 companies contacted by the Consultants, advised the consultants in writing and expressed interests in leasing all the three hotels rather than managing them as this would assist the SSNIT Board to reverse the situation where it would operate the hotels at a loss, The New Independent learnt. The UK Company, by name Dazee Hotels, London, emerged as the best company to take over the three hotels. Rather than lend money to GBH Board, Dazee Hotels sought to lease the entire hotels as they are and further refurbished all the three hotels with their own funds and still continues to pay lease sum of over US$2m annually to SSNIT. Strangely enough, it appears the immediate past SSNIT Board members for some reasons best known to them, did not cash in on such a big opportunity as recommended by the Consultants but rather continued to manage the three hotels under an abysmal losses and have been trying in all ways to further extend the management agreement with Legacy, a South African Management Group, that is currently managing Labadi Beach under a shoddy agreement that perpetually keeps Labadi operating at a loss. This development, The New Independent can report, has opened the flood gates for daylight fraud since Legacy Hotel and Resorts has succeeded in producing dubious expenditures in the maintenance of the hotels and SSNIT, by paying for these costs, are overwhelmingly being milked while pensioners are squealing for mercy. The New Independent can establish that, what is more worrying is that, SSNIT in an attempt to run for cover, is now seeking to take loans to inject into the Golden Beach Hotels when a simple lease option, where annual payments are made, can rather go a long way to profit the authority. A reliable source at the head office of SSNIT told this paper that, pensioners are likely to be hit by a major financial crisis as a result of this gambling by SSNIT, which constitutes a clear case of total waste of pension funds.