GHC 144m GRA/Subah Scandal: Where the monies went
Further digging by Citi News into the unfolding GHC 144 million scandal, involving the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Subah Infosolutions Ghana Limited, has exposed curious payments by the latter to a tall list of individuals and companies.
Subah Infosolutions was contracted by the GRA in 2010 to provide telecom traffic monitoring services for the Tax Agency.
Over the last two years, the company received up to GHC 144 million from the GRA, mostly in monthly instalments.
Our investigations found that the GRA funds were paid into the company’s Stanbic Bank Account number 0140002687401.
Available evidence shows that the company did absolutely no work for the people of Ghana to merit the average GHC 4 million it received monthly from the tax watch dog.
Our crack team of investigators looking hard at piles of files and account records of Subah InfoSolutions, has uncovered various payments by the company to a number of institutions and individuals.
Some of the Payments
Key payments went to institutions such as C.A Nzema Oil, Local Enterprises and skills Development Programme [LESDEP]; China-based ZTE and the Road Safety Management Services. The Chief Executive Officer of Jospong Group and officers of the Ghana Police Service also received payments, according evidence seen and analysed by our team.
The Breakdown
C.A Nzema Oil is a subsidiary of Jospong Group. It was incorporated in Ghana in July 2011. In all, Subah Infosolutions paid a total 1,936,750 Ghana Cedis to C.A Nzema Oil. The Local Enterprises and skills Development Programme (LESDEP) is a public-private partnership under the auspices of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. It seeks to;
Create and facilitate the acquisition of technical, entrepreneurial and other specialized skills that lead to the creation and management of sustainable businesses by the unemployed youth in the country
Provide start-up equipment and post-set-up support services.
We found that LESDEP received two payments, 2,000,000 Ghana Cedis on December 28, 2012 and another 2,000,000 Ghana cedis on 21 January 2012 from Subah Infosolutions.
The two payments were described by Subah InfoSolution’s cash books as “loan repayment,” implying that LESDEP has been dolling out cash in loans to the company it contracted to support its training activities. Our findings show all two payments were bank transfers.
Total payments to JOSPONG Group, Subah InfoSolutions’ mother company, totalled 5,831,246 Ghana Cedis. Chief Executive of the Group is captured on the company’s account books as having received various payments between February 2011 and March 2012.
China-based ZTE, a company listed by Subah Infosolutions on its website as one of its five international partners, also received up to 200,000 Ghana Cedis for equipment it provided.
Other international companies listed on Subah Infosolutions’ website as partners are: India’s VNL, K.S. Infosystems also of India and Germany’s DocuWare.
Again, our investigations uncovered various payments to Road Safety Management Services (RSMS), another Subsidiary of Jospong Group. In all RSMS received a total of 4,067,277.93 Ghana Cedis from Subah Infosolutions at various times. For instance, evidence seen by our team shows that in December 2012, Subah Infosolutions released a total of 27,000 Ghana Cedis to pay the salaries of staff of its sister company.
The SSNIT Contributions of staff of RSM were also paid from Subah Infosolutions’ accounts. Also, in January 2012, Subah Infosolutions paid contract staff and national service persons of the same company from its pocket.
On the 19th of March, 2012, Subah Infosolutions wrote five different cheques, each of an amount of 200,000 Ghana Cedis captured on its books as loans refund to the Chief Executive Officer.
On the 29th of March 2012 the company wrote a cheque for 1,000,000 Ghana Cedis to the CEO. The payment was captured as “Payment to Cash Refund of loan to CEO.” A year earlier, the company wrote three cheques the value of which totalled 1,107,580 Ghana Cedis.
All three cheques were captured as “Payment-Loan to CEO.” Five days later, the company wrote another cheque for 200,000 for the CEO. It was captured as “Payment- Loan to CEO”.
Again, on May, 30 that same year, the CEO received another 17,000 Ghana Cedis which was also captured as “Payment-Loan to CEO”. Several other such payments run through the records of the company.
Source: Citifmonline
