The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Chief Executive, Mr. Osei Assibey Antwi has revealed that some heads of departments and other colleagues of KMA who have created their own office and acting on the blind side of the administration has caused the Assembly a whooping GH¢50,602.874.43 as Judgment debt.
According to the MCE, it is worrying to note that between October and December 2016, the judgment debt of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly jumped from GH¢6,427,287.75 to GHC 50,602,874.43 adding that there are more to come to exacerbate the plight of the Assembly .
‘’Just last week Meskworld company limited through their Solicitors Lithur Brew and company served notice on KMA to be sued if the Assembly failed to pay a sum of GHC 3,171.866.04 owed since 2008’’, Mr. Osei Assibey indicated.
Delivering the sessional address at the second ordinary meeting of the second section of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, KMA, he said, through the actions and inactions of some members of the Assembly, the assembly has been plunged into a financial crisis.
He gave an instance where in a memo written by the Metropolitan Coordinating Director to the then Acting MCE, Ashanti Regional Minister captioned “Appeal for intervention to manage the KMA judgment debts’’ it indicated that the assembly was saddled with judgment debts to the tune of Six Million, Four Hundred and Twenty-Seven Thousand, Two Hundred and Eighty- Seven Ghana Cedis and according to the memo, the debt was borne out of court cases.
‘’We cannot just sweep such unacceptable incidents under the carpet and so we shall all take the necessary steps to unravel the mysteries surrounding such debts” he told the Assembly and other stakeholders.
Touching on the issue of the cost of the recreational center which has been surrounded by controversy, the KMA Boss revealed that, the Rotary park, which is touted as the most modern recreational park in the country was commissioned in June, 2015 and it is said to have been developed with an amount of US$4.5 million with the expectation that return on the capital invested would be recouped within the reasonable time possible. But as it stands, he said, the projection cannot be realized.
He bemoaned that per the assembly records, the overall budgetary allocation for the construction of the Rotary park for the period, 2013 to 2016 was Five Million, Two Hundred and Seventy-Eight Thousand, Six Hundred and Seven-Four Ghana Cedis, Forty Pesewas and that payment made in respect of work done totalled GH¢5,068,964.01 (US$ 1,267,241.00) as at December 2016, which according the MCE the dollar rate as at that time stood at a conservative rate of $4.00.
Mr. Osei Assibey Antwi continued that obviously, that was about US$ 3.2million far less than the US$4.5 million declared as the cost of the construction.
He gave the assurance that, there would be thorough forensic audit into the cost of the project
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