Ghana, September 17, 2020//-Son of Former Vice President and New Patriotic Party (NPP) Parliamentary Candidate for the Yendi Constituency in the Northern Region of Ghana working with his collaborators have cooked up massive shady procurement deals.
In an audited report cited by The Herald Newspaper, Farouk Aliu Mahama who is also the Deputy Procurement Manager at COCOBOD is reported to have orchestrated the award of single-sourced contracts to fictitious companies.
Farouk Aliu Mahama is reported in the internal audit report to have short-circuited the approved procurement processes to award contracts to companies owned by political cronies.
These contracts run over 4.5 million Ghana Cedis in total sum that were awarded under very questionable circumstances for the supply of jute sacks and knapsack sprayers.
The corrupt acts are contained in both internal audit and the Auditor Generals (AG) reports. It is like a mad rush meant to make some people in authority rich and powerful.
Additionally, in one instance on paragraph six of the AGs report, these officials colluded with political cronies to cook and use fake documents to obtain contracts by fraudulently passing on an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certificates belonging to already vetted companies, to newly formed ones and also arranged for different companies belonging to one person, to undertake fictitious tendering and awarded contracts at inflated prices.
“Officials of COCOBOD colluded with dubious elements in high political circles, to create a fictitious group of companies which bid for the supply of chemicals and knapsack sprayers”, the report said.
The document said after obtaining the best price guide from Public Procurement Authority (PPA), the said officials connived with cronies to eliminate the least bids by writing to COCOBOD to drop them out of the process so as to enable the contact to be awarded to the only remaining firm with the most outrageous bid price outside the approved band.
Ghana Center for Democratic Development recently published series of reports of acts of corruption mainly in vote-buying involving politicians of the ruling party who were involved in acts of vote-buying.
Farouk Aliu Mahama, the NPP Parliamentary Candidate for Yendi is reported to have distributed knapsack sprayers worth GHC 400,000 to delegates and opinion leaders in the Yendi Constituency.
The internal audit report goes further to provide more clarity to the awards of these fictitious contracts. It is not clear what sanctions the NPP has placed on this Candidate after publication of the said alleged acts of corruption.
Farouk has been cited in many acts of procurement breaches but internal sources declared him as “untouchable”, hence the authorities failed to dismiss him to pronounce the appropriate sanctions mainly due to his political connection as son of Former Vice President.
