Ex-Mayor Living In Fear Over �3bn Loan Facility

THE ex-Mayor of the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA), Mr. Kobina Pra-Annan, is bubbling in fear as the Economic Crime and Organised Office (EOCO) has threatened to grill him over fresh revelations on how he sidestepped the rules and regulations of the Assembly to contract and sign a loan of �3 billion for commodity suppliers, in respect of the School Feeding Programme. The ex-Mayor, who was on radio defending his action, ignorantly lost sight of the fact that he had abused his office by sidestepping the provisions in the Financial Regulations of the STMA, which forbid him from contracting loans in the name of the Assembly, without the knowledge of the other members of the Assembly. Kobina Pra-Annan told listeners of Skyy Power FM that he did not see anything wrong in contracting the said loan for suppliers of the School Feeding Programme (SFP), and faulted this paper�s account. Interestingly, what has heightened the fear of Mr. Pra-Annan, as the EOCO launches fresh investigations into the �3 billion loan saga, is how he had been left in the cold by the Regional Coordinator of the School Feeding Proghramme, Ambrose Ankrah. Mr. Ankrah admitted in the said radio interview, and a follow up with The Chronicle, that he did not remember going to the Mayor to inform him the SFP was cash-strapped, and as such, needed money for a bailout programme. �I have not gone to the Mayor to inform him that the SFP needed money. I haven�t done that, and I don�t remember doing that, you can quote me,� he told this reporter in a telephone interview. This admission and revelation by the Regional SFP Coordinator contradicts what the Mayor reportedly told the royal family of Mpintsin, leading to the fleecing of the family of a total amount of GH�37,000 to sort out School Feeding Program issues. The royal family of Mpintsin, in its statement to the EOCO, admitted that the Mayor had fleeced the family of the aforementioned money to sort out problems confronting the School Feeding Programme. According to the family members, led by Nana Yadae Kojo IV, they only got to know that the ex-Mayor had fleeced them of the said amount of money, when he was kicked out of office by the President.