Chief Of Staff Not Auctioning State Property Unlawfully

The Chief Director of the Presidency (Jubilee House), H.M. Wood, has debunked claims that the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, is involved in the unlawful auctioning of state property, particularly, some nine vehicles belonging to the Kumasi Technical University (KTU).

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, has reportedly sued the state over the alleged public auction of nine unserviceable vehicles belonging to the KTU.

The MP is said to be pushing that the approval for the auction, said to have taken place in December 2020, was given by the Chief of Staff and has insisted that she has “no authority to approve the disposal of the nine vehicles in the possession of the Kumasi Technical University by auction sale.”

The Chief Director has rebutted the MP’s claim, saying that there is no basis for the MP’s claim because the Chief of Staff never breached any procurement laws in carrying out her lawful duties.

“In the first place it must be stated that such an allegation has no basis and is therefore not true, since the Chief of Staff has not signed any letter or made a declaration to that effect on any platform,” the Chief Director said in a memo dated September 29, 2021.

“As regards approval for auctions in the public sector, we must indicate that the function used to be performed by the Ministry of Finance during the days of the Provisional National Defense Council until 1993 when the function was taken over by the Office of the President.

“Until then, it was noted that the Ministry of Finance could not do the needed due diligence to establish the true state of property earmarked by MDAs/MMDAs/ Institutions for auction before it gave approval for the exercise. Upon taking over the approval function, the Office of the President established a valuation unit which follows up on requests submitted to the office by the public entities and does verification/assessment of the items, and make recommendations on whether approval should be given or not for consideration by the Chief of Staff. From the above, it is clear that giving approval for disposal of state property did not start with the current Chief of Staff,” the Chief Director’s memo said.

“Again, the Chief of Staff does not request any entity to make available cars and property to be auctioned as claimed in the publication attributed to the Member of Parliament for South Dayi,” he added.

The memo insisted that “the assertion made by the Hon. Member of Parliament with respect to the case of the Kumasi Technical University that it is the Ministry of Education that has the mandate to give approval for the University to undertake the auction is also not grounded in law.”

He said “Per Section 1(2) of the Technical Universities Act, 2016 (Act 992), a technical university established under this Act is a body corporate with perpetual succession,” adding “Section 31(1) of Act 922 further provides that a technical university may, for the purpose of the performance of the functions of that technical university, or any purpose which that technical university considers necessary or expedient, acquire and hold moveable or immoveable property, sell, lease, mortgage or otherwise alienate or dispose of that property and enter into any other transaction.”

The Chief Director said “from the foregoing, the law does not in any way impose a duty on such ‘corporate body’, in this case the Kumasi Technical University, to necessarily get approval from the Ministry of Education before it carries out any of such activities. However, since it is a government policy that all public sector entities should obtain approval from the Office of the President before they purchase or dispose of any property acquired with public funds, the Kumasi Technical University was under obligation to seek and obtain approval from the Office of the President before it dispose of the vehicles in question.”

The memo said all auction proceeds are paid “directly into the Consolidate Fund at the Bank of Ghana by the auctioneers,” saying “Accordingly, we do not think the Chief of Staff has infringed on the law by granting approval for the disposal of the vehicles deemed unserviceable by the Kumasi Technical University and corroborated by the technical reports from the STV-Vi Coaches Ltd on the vehicles.”

Source:dailyguidenetwork.com