Member of Parliament for Effutu is scandalized by what he says is the complete lack of political will by the John Mahama-led government to reclaim monies illegally and fraudulently paid to individuals and companies.
Alexander Afenyo Markins does not understand why the state, after almost a year, has only managed to collect 14.5 million cedis from the AGAMS Groups of companies, one of the companies said to have benefitted from the illegal payment amounting to over 100 million cedis.
Joy News, in what became known as the GYEEDA and SADA scandals broke the story about how some companies had milked the state through some fraudulent projects.
The story culminated in ministerial investigation. The investigation concluded that some private companies- AGAMS and Jospong had illegally benefitted from tax payers’ monies.
The government then went into an agreement with the companies for them to pay by quarterly installments, the monies fraudulently paid to them.
Almost a year after that agreement, nothing much has been retrieved.
Afenyo Markins in an interview with Joy News was astounded with the conduct of the Deputy Attorney General Dominic Ayine who he accused of “playing to the gallery”.
The Deputy AG in trumpeting government’s commitment to fighting corruption at an anti-corruption programme announced on Monday that the state had retrieved 14.5 million cedis from companies who had benefitted illegally from the state.
The MP Afenyo Markins said Government’s approach is only mediocre.
He wondered how the state would claim to have retrieved only 14.5million cedis when it is duty bound to collect at least 140million cedis from AGAMS alone.
Even more shocking for him is the fact that nobody has been prosecuted for these monies wrongfully and illegally paid to the AGAMS as well as the Jospong groups of companies.
Worse still, Afenyo Markins said the country, having borrowed these monies which were gifted to the AGAMS group for the failed Guinea fowl project, is going to pay back with interest, close to 299million cedis next November.
So to negotiate with AGAMS and Jospong to pay back on quarterly basis without interest and still fail to retrieve the monies is unacceptable, the MP lamented.
He promised to drag the Attorney General before Parliament to answer questions on the failure by the state to retrieve the monies.
