Police CID on Monday questioned Multimedia reporter Manasseh Azure Awuni over his reportage on contracts handed to Jospong Group of Companies under the previous government.
Reportage from Joy News have shown how the businessman with ties to the NDC had received numerous contracts on sole sourcing basis from the previous government, mostly at figures inflated far above market prices.
Thus the journalist was invited by investigators to present evidence he has so far to help make the case against the accused.
According to myjoyonline…
Accompanied by a team of lawyers and some colleagues, Manasseh Azure Awuni provided documentary, video and audio evidence of the investigations he conducted on some questionable contracts signed between the Local Government Ministry under erstwhile president John Mahama and the Jospong Group of companies.
The police among other things sought clarifications on how the Jospong Group of companies won contracts to supply one million waste bins and 900,000 bin liners, at prices higher than the market prices for the same products.
The $74 million contract sole sourced to five Jospong subsidiaries had a possible contract inflation of about ¢130 million. Even though the company sold the waste bins on the market at ¢150.00, they sold it to the government at $60 each the equivalent of which was ¢250 million at the time.
Worse still the contract was not needed at all because Joy News checks indicated that the assemblies already had waste bins begging to be distributed to homes and offices. They were left at the mercy of the weather.
The police were also concerned about the fumigation contract in which 11 Jospong companies received a ¢98 million contract to fumigate markets, places of convenience just to fight the scourge of cholera.
That contract signed in 2015 for a period of four months, came at a time Zoomlion, another subsidiary of the Jospong Group of companies, had an existing contract to do the same job, a job they had failed to do, Assembly members confirmed to Manasseh Azure Awuni.