Back your claims with evidence – Maame Afia Akoto

Following the back and forth over the deal involving the purchase of 350 vehicles under the previous Microfinance and Small Loans Centre CEO, Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, she has been challenged to absolve herself of any wrongdoing by providing evidence.

The former MASLOC administration has been accused of inflating the price of the vehicles procured for the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU).

The Centre’s former CEO denied these claims stating that the GPRTU were already in talks with the supplier, MAC Auto & Spare Parts (Gh) Limited for the supply of the vehicles, at the prices that were claimed to be inflated.

MASLOC’s Deputy Executive Secretary, Maame Afia Akoto, however believes this defense must be backed with evidence, following the  statement Mrs. Attionu released denying the allegations.

“She [Attionu] should come out and let Ghanaians know that this is exactly what GPRTU brought and for that reason, she doesn’t see why GPTRTU should refuse the figures out there,” Mrs. Akoto said on Eyewitness News.

The cars in question are currently lying unused because the GPRTU refuses to purchase them because of the high cost.

Mrs. Akoto views this to be an indication that something untoward has gone on, as she insisted that nobody altered any agreement.

“If GPRTU truthfully went for this agreement, they won’t run away from the figures now. If they had already gone to see MAC Auto & Spare Parts and made their own agreement for some vehicles at some prices, that would be comfortable for them [now].”

Inconsistent PPA agreement

Mrs. Attionu, in her defense, said a letter was written to Public Procurement Authority (PPA) requesting their approval to single source the vehicles from MAC Auto, and she added that she received a response from the PPA acknowledging the receipt of the letter, and requesting MASLOC to provide them with the Financial Arrangements approved by the Ministry of Finance.

But Mrs. Akoto has disputed this, saying there was no documentation that indicated that “she [Attionu] went to PPA to sole-source the cars from Mac Auto Parts. We don’t have any evidence to back that.”

She further said there were inconsistencies in the PPA agreements on the files from the previous administration

“We have this same [PPA] agreement with different dates in this woman’s file – same agreement with different dates. One was dated at the tail end in December, and one at an earlier date in December.”

“If truthfully, you were doing things right, why should one agreement have different dates to prove that this agreement MASLOC has gone into with MAC Auto & Spare Parts was signed this day and another agreement was signed earlier. Which of the documents is telling us the truth.”

Source: Citifmonline