Woyome�s Woes Deepen

�Vamed Engineering Indicated To Govt. It Had No Qualification And No Interest In the Award Of Contracts For Stadia Projects In 2005!

Letter from VAMED
Document 1 Document 2
Letter from Waterville Document 1 Document 2 The New Crusading GUIDE�s Special Investigations Team (SIT) has intercepted a letter written by Vamed Engineering GmbH & Co. KG, an Austria Company which is active in the sector of healthcare projects, to the Government of Ghana, to the effect that it (Vamed) neither had qualification nor interest in the award of contracts for stadia projects. The Vamed letter dated 7th September, 2005 was addressed to the then Minister of Education and Sports, Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo, and copied to the Chief of Staff and Minister for Presidential Affairs, Mr. Kwadwo Mpiani, the Secretary to the President, Ambassador D.K. Osei and the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu. �Honourable Minister Osafo-Maafo, referring to your letter No.WE10/43/01 dated August 22, 2005, which we got handed over on September 1, 2005 by Mr. Alfred Woyome, the Alternate Director of M-Powapak Limtied, we would like to make the following clarifications: (1) VAMED ENGINEERING (VE) is a company which is active in the sector of healthcare projects only and has no qualification and no interests in the award of contracts for stadia projects�, declared Mr. Paul Hallbauer, Managing Director and Mr. K. Krammer, Legal Advisor of Vamed Engineering in the first paragraph of the letter under reference. The August 22, 2005 Osafo-Maafo letter referred to by Mr. Hallbauer and Mr. Krammer, was the letter in which Mr. Osafo-Maafo communicated the Government of Ghana�s position on the August 5, 2005 letter from the Central Tender Review Board to Mr. Osafo-Maafo, which gave �concurrent approval for the award of the contract to Messrs VAMED Engineering, subject to your submission of the Procurement Plan for MoES including that of LOC (Section 21 (1.4) of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 553)�. Osafo-Maafo, in his August 22, 2005 letter addressed to the Managing Director of Vamed Engineering, had expressed regret that �the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) is unable to continue with the tendering process due to the high financial commitments implied in the submission, the inconclusive and non-assuring nature of the financial submissions�, and proceeded to thank Vamed for participating in the tendering process for the project. Vamed Engineering in its �clarification letter� of September 7, 2005, revealed that when they (Vamed) had information that there were hospital projects in relation with the CAN 2008 stadia project, they immediately made an offer for 6 hospitals in 2003 which finally led to the signing of 6 contracts which did not become effective due to lack of funds for the hospital projects. Vamed disclosed that parallel to their (Vamed�s) interest in the hospital projects, another Austrian company known as VA-Tech, �juridically and economically independent of Vamed�s activities, made an offer for the Stadia Projects relevant to CAN 2008�. They further indicated that both Vamed�s Contracts and VA-Tech�s offer were based on the assumption that the hospital projects and stadia projects would be financed by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). �When it turned out that the envisaged financing could not be arranged VA-Tech withdrew from the Stadia Projects and Waterville represented by M-Powapak Limited started to search for alternate financing possibilities with VE acting as the �spearhead� for the search of such alternative financing for the hospital and stadia projects�, added Mr. Hallbauer and Mr. Krammer in their September 7, 2005 letter to Osafo-Maafo. They continued: �When VE learned in June 2005 that only the stadia projects but not the hospital projects will be implemented VE stopped the search for alternative financing of all the aforementioned projects. Consequently, we would like to inform you that VE is not and was never in a consortium with Waterville and that therefore in our opinion your letter No.WE10/43/01 dated August 22, 2005 should have been addressed to Waterville�. In conclusion, the two Vamed top shots emphasised that ��we would like to inform you that VE has not initiated and is not involved in the protest of Waterville�s lawyer against the award of most of the stadia projects to a Chinese Company�. It is significant to note that the details of the financial engineering which Mr. Woyome is claiming he successfully put together and made available to the Government of Ghana, include 6 hospitals and one wellness centre amounting to �329,411,765.00, Cabait 60 plant and tissue culture facility, Accra, Ghana, amounting to �12,941,176.00 and the stadia projects amounting to �764,117,646.00; all totaling �1,106,470,587.00. It is 2 per cent of the above total (�1,106,470,587.00) which Mr. Woyome made a claim for in his February 18, 2010 petition to the then Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu. Hear him: �Madam, from the above, I am formally demanding from the Government of Ghana the payment of the Financial Arrangement Cost which is 2% of all legally offered amounts by Bank Austria to the Government of Ghana amounting to �1,106,470,587.00 equaling �22,129,411.74 as contained in the last page of Waterville�s document entitled: �REPORT FOR DISCUSSION WITH GOVERNMENT OF GHANA ABOUT TERMINATION OF CONTRACT� and contained in Annex F�. He continued: �The per centum in this circumstance is normally 4% but Waterville negotiated it to 2% with THE PREVIOUS REGIME. Half of this amount is due our external partners: Austro Invest. The other half of �11,064,705.87 I claim on my behalf. Attached also in Annex F is a letter from my group authorizing me to receive such monies in my name as Alfred Agbesi Woyome�. Meanwhile, the Chief of Staff in Kufuor�s Administration, Mr. Kwadwo Mpiani, in an interview with our Special investigators, categorically denied Mr. Woyome�s assertion saying �WE NEVER NEGOTIATED ANY SUCH DEAL WITH WATERVILLE. IT IS A BIG LIE�. In the same petition (February 18, 2010) Mr. Woyome sought to undermine the credibility of Vamed�s September 7, 2005 letter to Osafo-Maafo by alleging that that �letter was written by Vamed because we believe that Vamed was being �threatened� with the discontinuation of their other on-going hospital projects in Ghana�. He accused some unnamed members of the Kufuor Administration of having solicited the September 7, 2005 letter from Vamed in response to the August 22, 2005 letter from Osafo-Maafo to Vamed informing the latter of the Government�s inability �to continue with the tendering process due to the high financial commitments implied in the submissions� among other reasons. Mr. Woyome appeared to have convinced Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu on the validity of his 2 per cent claim as the latter in a letter dated April 29, 2010 addressed to the Minister of Finance & Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffour, argued that �the claim for two per cent (2%) of the total value of the project that Mr. Woyome and Austro-Invest financially engineered, which they have agreed should be paid to Mr. Woyome is therefore in order, hence my recommendation that you authorize payment of the amount due��. Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu recalled that �the claim is for project financial engineering fees by Mr. Woyome and Austro-Invest. The financial arrangements were made in respect of the concurrent approval given by the Central Tender Review Board for the award of contract to Vamed Engineering, who transferred its rights in the project to Waterville Holdings (copies of letter of transfer and acceptance attached) and (copy of letter of Central Tender Review Board dated 5th August attached). It was in these circumstances that the then Government terminated the entire process�. �IT IS MY OPINION THAT THIS LETTER DATED 5TH AUGUST 2005 FORMED THE BASIS OF A BINDING AGREEMENT BETWEEN VAMED AND THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA AND THE PROCESS HAVING BEEN TERMINATED WRONGFULLY BY THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA, THE CLAIMANTS ARE ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION FOR SERVICES RENDERED�, articulated Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu. She contended that �further to a Ministry of Finance letter dated 4th May 2005, Mr. Woyome made arrangements for the grant of concessional loans for the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan and Baba Yara Stadia and the construction of three others for the Ghana 2008 football tournament, the construction of six (6) hospitals and the Cobait 60 Irradiation Plant among others�. She said Mr. Woyome�s role in project financial engineering was further evidenced by a letter from the Ministry of Education and Sports dated 5th July 2005 and an earlier letter from the then Minister for Environment and Science, Prof. Kasim Kasanga dated 28th October 2004 as well as letters showing the collaborative efforts of both Woyome and Waterville in facilitating the financial engineering for the projects. She revealed that Mr. Woyome had also entered into an agreement with Austro-Invest on 1st September 2005 in which the parties agreed to finalize their collaboration into a working business relationship for their mutual and common benefit. The agreement, she disclosed, provided that Austro-Invest shall offer services relating to syndication of funds from financial institutions as part of the financial structuring and acquisition of projects by Mr. Woyome. �The parties also agreed that Mr. Woyome will pay Austro-Invest up to 1.5% of the total amount syndicated. This figure was subsequently negotiated downwards to 1% for Austro-Invest in the 16th February 2010 agreement. Mr. Woyome�s role, as distinct from Austro-Invest�s role which was mainly for the syndication of funds, is further evidenced by correspondences with international financial institutions such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Final Demand Letter of J. Michael Farrel, a Washington-based lawyer, who worked on Mr. Woyome�s instructions in respect of a contract involving Austro-Invest (copy of Demand Letter attached). Mr. Michael Farrel has recently threatened to institute legal action against Mr. Woyome and the Government of Ghana for non-payment of legal fees relating to his work for Mr. Woyome (copy attached)�, Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu�s letter to the Finance Minister further indicated. Interestingly, Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu�s letter under reference, had been occasioned by a letter dated April 12, 2010 from the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffour in which the latter had sought to draw Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu�s attention to a query raised by the Accounts office of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP) on the supporting documentation for Mr. Woyome�s 2 percent claim on the �1,106,470,587.00 he (Woyome) alleged he engineered from Bank Austria for the six hospitals Cobait 60 Plant and CAN 2008 stadia projects. �I refer to your letter dated 31 March 2010 on the above mentioned subject matter (Settlement of Claim involving the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan, Baba Yara and El-Wak Sports Stadia) authorizing the Ministry to make payment of two percent (2%) of amount claimed (�1,106,470,587.00)�Our Accounts office has raised a query on the supporting documentation of the claim. For audit purposes they require clarity and evidence on whether the claim is being made by the consortium that won the bid to conduct the financial engineering led by Mr. Woyome jointly or separately. Kindly advise on the implication of this Agreement and also provide us with any further documentation that substantiates Mr. Woyome�s claim�, Dr. Duffour alerted Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu. Authentic documents intercepted by New Crusading GUIDE, indicate that as a result of the Finance Ministry�s initial refusal to comply with Mrs. Mould Iddrisu�s recommendation to pay the 2% claim then being made on Government by Mr. Woyome and Austro-Invest, Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu in her capacity as Attorney-General followed up with a letter dated May 28, 2010 stating that as a result of the position taken by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Woyome had gone to court and obtained judgement on May 24, 2010 in the sum of GH�41,811,480.59 plus interest of Euro 5 million (GH�9,447,000.00) and cost of GH�25,000.00, amounting to a total of GH�51,283,480.59. It was at this stage that the Ministry of Finance negotiated with the Solicitors for Mr. Woyome to pay the money in three installments.