Franklin Cudjoe, President of IMANI Africa, has described the controversial contracts awarded to Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) as “cancerous,” raising serious concerns about financial and policy oversight in the engagements.
Speaking on the matter on Citi FM’s The Big Issue on Saturday November 1, Cudjoe said the contracts failed at every level, both financially and in terms of policy guidance.
“I think the SML thing is cancerous. Beyond it being a duck and an elephant it is just cancerous. I just can’t imagine that every level of propriety fails, financial, policy wise.
“What even hurts me is that there seem to be no proper guiding policy as to how this thing should be done. I mean, the question is what was the level of need,” he stated.
Cudjoe’s comments follow findings by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), which concluded that the SML contract was unnecessary, unlawfully approved, and financially damaging to the state.
The OSP investigation revealed that there was no genuine need for engaging SML and that the contracts were secured through self-serving patronage and promotion based on unverified claims.
The OSP probe also uncovered significant statutory violations, with key officials ignoring mandatory approval processes, and highlighted that financial management and performance monitoring of SML were inadequate.
Payments were reportedly made on an automatic basis without verification of work completed, resulting in substantial financial losses to the state.
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