<<Print>>

There are desperate attempts by a section of pro-NDC media houses to convince the good people of Ghana that Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome�s controversial GH�51 claim on the Government of Ghana (GoG) was (is) based on a breach/abrogation of a contract that he (Woyome) or a Consortium (?) he allegedly led had entered into with the Republic of Ghana during the Kufuor Administration. Indeed these desperate attempts have been fueled by statements made by Mr. Woyome on the airwaves and in petitions submitted to officialdom, in his strange quest for compensation and/or payment for financial engineering services he allegedly offered to the Government of Ghana relative to the CAN 2008 tournament held in Ghana. Interestingly, these desperate attempts found expression in a court document intercepted by this newspaper. A Pre-Trial Conference/Settlement (Suit No: OCC43/10/) sighted by our roving scouts indicate that Pre-Trial Judge, Mrs. Novisi A. Aryene, on February 7, 2011, had concluded after settlement negotiations/discussions had broken down, that among other issues certified for trial, was �whether or not the procurement process for award of the contract to rehabilitate the stadia was duly completed by the Government as a result of which contract Central Tender Review Board by a letter dated 5th August 2005, gave concurrent approval for the award of the contract to Messrs Vamed Engineering Limited�. However, a critical or closer scrutiny of the sequence of events show that the issue of breach/abrogation of contract and truncation of the procurement process is of no relevance to the on-going controversy surrounding the payment of GH�51m to Woyome on one hand and the unconfirmed Euro 25m payment made to Waterville. It is true that the Central Tender Review Board on August 5, 2005 wrote to the then Minister of Education & Sports, Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo �to give concurrent approval for award of the contract to Messrs VAMED Engineering, subject to your submission of the Procurement Plan for MoES including that of LOC (Section 21(1.4) of the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663)�. It is also true that the CAN 2008 sub-committee on Finance chaired by Deputy Governor of Bank of Ghana (BoG), Mr. Lionel Van Lare Dosoo, in a Memorandum dated July 22, 2005, recommended that VAMED Engineering be contacted for further discussions, after ranking it (VAMED) number one out of two shortlisted firms it (CAN 2008) sub-committee on Finance) had assessed on basis of �the credibility, viability, timeliness and current status of the financial package from these two firms�. The other firm, EMASA/EPIFER was ranked second to VAMED! It is also true that Mr. Osafo Maafo subsequently, in a letter dated August 22, 2005 wrote to the Managing Director of VAMED Engineering to the effect that �we regret to inform you that MoES is unable to continue with the tendering process due to the high financial commitments implied in the submissions, the inconclusive and non-assuring nature of the financial submissions�, and thanked VAMED for participating in the tendering process for the project (CAN 2008 Tender For The Construction of Stadia). While all the above incidents did transpire, it is also crucial to underscore that VAMED, long before the August 5, 2005 letter from the Central Tender Review Board and Osafo Maafo�s August 22, 2005 letter referenced above, had formally lifted itself out of the tendering process and assigned all its rights and obligations in respect of the stadia construction to Waterville Holdings (BVI) Ltd. In a letter dated July 1, 2005, addressed to Mr. Orlandi, Managing Director of Waterville Holdings BVI, Mr. Paul Hallbauer, Managing Director of VAMED Engineering, wrote that �with reference to the upcoming tenders for the football stadia in relation to the CAN 2008 games and the Atomic Energy Project (Cobait 60 plant) in Ghana, Vamed Engineering states that it hereby assigns all its rights and obligations in respect of the stadia and Atomic Energy Commission projects to Waterville (BVI) Ltd. It is clearly understood that Waterville has accepted this assignment�. �Please note that as of today�s date (July 1, 2005 Vamed Engineering Gesm.b.H&Co. KG will not be involved in, or accept any liability for the financial engineering or any other aspect relating to the stadia or Atomic Energy Projects�, Hallbauer emphasised. Waterville subsequently acknowledged the contents of Vamed�s July 1, 2005 letter, and accepted �the assignment of all rights and obligations in respect of the upcoming tenders for: the football stadia in relation to CAN 2008 games in Ghana, Atomic Energy Project (Cobait 60 plant) in Ghana�. Indeed Vamed also wrote a letter dated September 7, 2005, addressed to the Ministry of Education & Sports, saying that they (Vamed) had no track record nor interest in the construction of stadia. They claimed that they had been given the false impression by their local representative that the project for the construction of stadia would include six hospitals. The Public Procurement Board, in granting approval for single source procurement for the construction of the two stadia in Tamale and Sekondi-Takoradi in preparation towards Ghana�s hosting of the Cup of African Nations (CAN) 2008, referred to that VAMED letter, and said: �Again, the self-explanatory letter from Messrs VAMED regarding their inability to execute the stadia contract in view of the fact that the construction of hospitals portion of the original tender will not come on have been well noted�. The fact of VAMED�s self-exclusion from the tendering process is further amplified by a letter authored and signed by one Colin Russell, dated August 27, 2005, which was addressed to the Minister of Education & Sports. Mr. Russel who introduced himself as �an international lawyer currently in Ghana, practicing as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, with strong associations with Transparency International�, intimated that he had been �instructed by Waterville Holdings Ltd. (BVI) (note � NOT VAMED) to write to respond to a letter dated 22nd August 2005 with reference No. WE10/43/01 on the letter head of the Ministry of Education and Sports of the Republic of Ghana and signed by Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo, MP, the Minister; and titled CUP OF AFRICAN NATIONS (CAN), GHANA � 2008 INVITATION TO TENDER FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF STADIA�. Mr. Russell further underscored that the subject-matter of his letter �relates to the bid made by the consortia known as Vamed Waterville and in this letter referred to as the bid�. It would interest readers to know that nearly 5 years later, on February 18, 2010, Mr. Woyome, in a petition to Attorney-General, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, as part of his GH�51m claim on the Government of Ghana, took issues with Mr. Osafo Maafo for addressing his (Osafo Maafo�s) August 22, 2005 letter to �Messrs Vamed Engineering Gmbh instead of Waterville BVI as Vamed had transferred its right for the project to Waterville BVI before the bidding processes�� �The Government was fully aware of this fact but chose to ignore it for whatever reason. Vamed referred that letter to Waterville BVI. The contents of the letter suggested the cancellation of the whole process that had taken more than five years at huge cost to us, including partial construction cost; contrary to the Public Procurement Act (2003 (Act 663),� Woyome posited in his petition to Betty Mould-Iddrisu. He alleged that some members of the Kufuor Administration had threatened Vamed to write the September 7, 2005 letter in which Vamed had indicated it had been misled by its local representative to join the tender process in the first place. In spite of all these developments, Alfred Agbesi Woyome today claims that he (Woyome) �together with my associates; M-Powapak, Austro Invest and other American companies worked assiduously to the point where Waterville BVI was invited by me through a request from BIC to assist conclude the process�. (See Woyome�s Petition/Claim to Attorney-General, February 18, 2010). Claiming that he was the one �who engineered the whole CAN 2008 concept, pursued it through with 3 consecutive Ministers of the Sports Ministry/Departments over the period�, Woyome in an August 18, 2009 letter to the Minister of Youth and Sports, Rashid Pelpuo, contended that �Waterville BVI through my help then formed Micheletti Company Ltd. to handle the construction of Accra Sports Stadium�. The sequence of events show that in spite of the August 22, 2005 letter by Osafo Maafo, Waterville, a company, Woyome claims he and his M-Powapak/Austro Invest brought on board, entered into a contract to handle the stadia construction and financial engineering for the CAN 2008 project. The Waterville Contract signed on April 26, 2006, almost nine (9) months after the Osafo Maafo letter to Vamed, was terminated by the Government in view of the failure of Waterville to fulfil the terms of the April 26, 2006 Contract. The Government of Ghana, in a letter dated August 1, 2006, terminated the contracts between the Government of Ghana and Waterville (BVI) for the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium and the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in line with Clause 17 of the Contracts, on the basis that �the primary condition that influenced the Government of Ghana in signing the contracts had not been fulfilled. This condition, the engineering of the funding by Waterville included bridge financing�. �Since you are unable to satisfy the fundamental condition that influenced Government of Ghana�s decision being engineering the funding. Cabinet cannot approve the Contracts and therefore the Contracts cannot be effective�, Attorney-General Joe Ghartey alerted Waterville. �We, serve you notice and notice is hereby given that since the Contracts did not receive approval from Cabinet in accordance with Clause 17, of the Contracts, the Contracts have never become effective�, concluded Joe Ghartey. Waterville in reaction, instructed its Solicitors, Tetteh & Co. (NOT COLLIN RUSSEL) to reject the decision of Government and this was done via a letter dated August 7, 2006. However, Waterville made a U-Turn on the issue of termination of their Contracts, and in a letter dated September 15, 2006, indicated that �CONSCIOUS OF THE DELAY THAT SUCH LEGALITY WOULD ENSUE AND THE ADVERSE IMPACT UPON THE CAN 2008 TARGET WE DECIDED, WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO OUR ACCRUED ENTITLEMENTS, TO ACCEPT THE DECISION OF GOVERNMENT TO TERMINATE THE AGREEMENTS�. The September 15, 2006 letter from Waterville, signed by Massimo Marca and addressed to the Secretary of Cabinet, CLEARLY BROUGHT TO AN END ANY DISPUTE OR LITIGATION OVER ABROGATION OF CONTRACTS, EITHER WITH VAMED OR WATERVILLE OR BOTH, HENCE THE INTRIGUING NATURE OF THE PRE-TRIAL COURT�S DECISION TO �INTERROGATE� THAT ISSUE. Waterville, in all its correspondences with Government, post September 15, 2006, had been focused on seeking payment for �work done�, and not compensation for termination/abrogation of contract(s). All the records available to The New Crusading GUIDE, show that neither Alfred Woyome nor M-Powapak/Austro Invest/Vamed/Waterville can legitimately make a case of termination/abrogation of contracts, and proceed to make a claim on that premise.