The Chairman of Parliament’s Select Committee on Roads and Transport, Theophilus Tetteh Chaie, has rubbished claims that a $40 million dollar loan contracted by government for the purchase 200 Metro Mass Transit (MMT) buses was misused.
He denied claims that only 116 buses were bought with the money.
The Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuoguon, Emmanuel Agyarko’s on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue insinuated that, government had procured only 116 buses from the $40 million loan.
He further noted that the GHc3.6 million cedis used to rebrand the controversial 116 buses was even “chicken feed,” adding that there could be possible rot in the deal.
But Tetteh Chaie said the buses were procured from government’s own revenue.
Citi News’ checks from the Parliamentary Hansard of December 15, 2015 showed that Theophilus Tetteh Chaie had said on the floor of Parliament that the 84 buses would be delivered by the first quarter of 2016.
However, in a recent interview with Citi News’ Duke Mensah Opoku, Mr. Chaie who is also the MP for Ablekuma Central, said the 200 buses were not supposed to be purchased with the loan.
He said government had pledged to raise $40 million by itself to purchase them, but has so far managed to raise monies for 116 buses.
He further explained that the loan his colleague MP was referring to was a $110 million credit facility from HSBC bank for some 125 Scania buses.
Mr. Chaie said government is still looking for money to purchase the remaining 84 buses and that they will be delivered as soon as the Ministry of Finance finds the money.
“Before government went for those buses it had to establish letters of credit because you need to pay before the buses are delivered. What the Finance Ministry has been able to provide is letters of credit for the 116 buses and those ones have been delivered”
“For the 84, the Finance Minister has not yet provided the letters of credit so definitely it cannot be delivered; you pay me, I deliver the buses. We are yet to pay for those buses. They were trying to put it to the public to look as if government has gone for the money and spent it,” he explained.
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