The National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has claimed that the government awarded two profitable cocoa road projects to Resource Access Limited, a company owned by the Vice President’s brother, in 2020.
According to Mr Gyamfi, these projects were awarded to Resource Access Limited through sole sourcing rather than a competitive bidding process, resulting in an inflated total cost of GH₵83 million.
The projects in question are the upgrading of the Assin Akropong – Odomasi – Asibrem road (22.18km) and the upgrading of the Kyibosohasowodze bungalow feeder road (14.50km).
Mr Gyamfi noted that, the Assin Akropong – Odomasi – Asibrem road contract was valued at GH₵54,263,718.64, while the Kyibosohasowodze bungalow feeder road was valued at GH₵29,468,546.54.
“Apart from the overpriced Sunyani Airport Phase One rehabilitation project, two juicy cocoa road projects were also awarded to Bawumia’s brother’s company, Resource Access Limited through sole-sourcing at an inflated cumulative cost of GH₵83 million in the year 2020,” he claimed.
He argued that, these single-sourced cocoa road projects were found by the Auditor-General to be “overpriced and awarded in breach of the Public Procurement Law, thus causing the nation huge financial losses.”
“Indeed, paragraph 65 of a Performance Audit Report by the Auditor-General on the Construction of Cocoa Roads revealed that COCOBOD did not rigorously analyze its procurement options for value for money but sought approval from the PPA for single sourcing and restricted tendering, thus procuring contracts that were up to three times more expensive than they could have obtained through competitive tendering,” he stated.