The Chief Executive Officer of Tanink Ghana Ltd, franchise holders of Chrysler, Jeep, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Iveco, etc in Ghana, have confirmed that they want to donate Grand Cherokee Jeeps to the Black Stars but has dismissed reports government, funded partly or fully it.
Mr. Roger Klogo told Myjoyonline.com the donation was a redemption of a long-standing promise made by Tanink Ghana Ltd to the Black Stars and has nothing to do with government.
According to him, he had promised the Chairman of the Ghana Football Association ahead of the 2014 World Cup during the trial match between the stars and Holland that if the Stars were to qualify to the semi-final stage of the competition, he would donate cars to all the players.
He was one of 30 Chief Executives sponsored by KLM to Holland to watch the Black Stars’ friendly match against Holland.
He said even though the Black Stars failed to perform in Brazil, he was touched by the huge sacrifices the Black Stars made in risking their lives to play in a tournament that no country initially wanted to host due to the ebola scare – the AFCON 2015 tournament.
He said the Black Stars went ahead to play in the tournament with countries whose citizens had suffered Ebola casualties and that was a supreme sacrifice worth acknowledging and rewarding.
Tanink was reported to have donated brand new Grand Cherokees to the Black Stars after they won silver in the just ended AFCON 2015 tournament held in Equatorial Guinea.
But some media reports have suggested the donation was funded either wholly or partly by government, reports Mr Klogo finds unsubstantiated.
“I want to say Tanink did present all those cars to the Black Stars and we did it together with our partners but without any government involvement. No government involvement at all,” he emphasised.
He said “some of the partners paying for some the cars said that they will only come on board on condition that the duties on the cars were exempted and of which I contacted Government and Government agreed to grant the exemption hence we went ahead to redeem the promise though they came home with silver.”
He hinted that, he will mobilise his partners again in the future to present the stars with their Maserati brand of cars should they win the next AFCON or reach the semi-finals in Russia.
Roger Klogo said they did not want to create a funfair about the donation and, therefore, decided to donate on the quiet to the Stars.
He found it rather worrying that government would be credited with the donation because the tax exemption granted is very minimal as compared to landed cost and the showroom price.
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