Joseph Kpemka, lawyer for the companies involved in the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) vehicle procurement contracts, has responded to claims by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) that the prices of vehicles supplied to the GRA were inflated.
This comes after CHRAJ ruled that former GRA Commissioner-General Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah be barred from holding public office for five years and referred him, along with the directors of Ronor Motors Ltd, Sajel Motors & Trading Company Ltd, and Telinno Ghana Ltd, to the Attorney-General for possible prosecution.
CHRAJ’s investigations found that the contracts, awarded through single-source procurement, were irregular and led to a financial loss of nearly GHS 9 million to the state.
The Commission also recommended sanctions against the companies for misrepresenting their ability to execute the contracts and urged stricter enforcement of public procurement rules to prevent future abuses.
Speaking on the Channel One Newsroom on Wednesday November 5, Kpemka insisted that the companies acted within standard commercial procedures and that the allegations of inflated pricing were based on a misunderstanding of how vehicle procurement works in Ghana.
He explained that Toyota Ghana, as the official importer and distributor, sets the base price for vehicles. Any company wishing to sell Toyota vehicles in Ghana must buy from Toyota and then add their operational and profit margins before reselling.
“What CHRAJ is saying is that when they check the prices of the said vehicles at Toyota Ghana they realise that the prices have been inflated by a certain amount by the various companies but this is where they get it all wrong and completely misleading the public.
Toyota Ghana are the original importers and distributors of Toyota in Ghana and so any company in Ghana who wants to trade in Toyota vehicles can go to Toyota and buy them and sell.
“So when they applied for sole sourcing, they went to Toyota and bought the vehicles and I cannot buy a vehicle from Toyota at GHS100 and sell it at GHS100. So what they did was that they procured these vehicles from Toyota calculated all their cost margins and added their profit margins and sold it to GRA.
“That is what happened. Unless CHRAJ wants to say that from now every Ghanaian who wants a car by any state institution must go to Toyota to buy.”
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