Lawyers for Smarttys Management and Productions Limited have reached an agreement with the A-G to refund the excess payment by the end of March this year.
Smartyys to refund excess cash end of March
Smarttys Management and Productions Limited have reached an agreement with the A-G to refund the excess payment by the end of March this year.
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This follows the directive by the Chief of Staff to the Attorney-General (A-G) and Minister of Justice to recover excess payment for the rebranding of 116 new buses.
A payment schedule submitted by lawyers for Smarttys confirmed that the payments would be made in three instalments, with the first instalment to be paid by the end of January.
It has emerged that a pro-forma invoice dated 17th July 2015, and signed by the Accounts Officer of Smarttys Management and Productions and copied to the Ministry of Transport, put the total cost of branding for each bus at Ghc30,420.00.
The Ministry of Transport has been the centre of controversy in parliament as debated the 2016 budget.
The minority leader drew the speaker's attention to an item in the accounts of expenditures made from the petroleum revenues fund by the Ministry of Transport in 2015 which had to do with the amounts spent on branding 116 Metro Mass Transit buses.
Referring to the 2015 Annual Report on the Petroleum Revenues Fund, the Ministry spent GHC31,000 on branding the images of eight former presidents on each Metro Mass Transit bus.
Dzifa Attivor resigned following her Ministry’s decision to spend GHC 3.6 million on the buses.
She tendered in her resignation to the president.
Following public backlash over the matter, the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah ordered the Attorney General to thoroughly investigate the contract and recover GH¢1.9 million from Smarttys.
President John Mahama has assured Ghanaians that government is on track to retrieve excess money from Smartyys Productions over the GHC 3.6 million spent on re-branding 116 buses.
Concerns have later been raised as to how Government will be swift in retrieving the said amount.
But speaking to the media at the Flagstaff House on Tuesday, January 12, 2016 President Mahama noted that "On Friday, the lawyers of the company met with the Attorney General to agree on a payment plan to refund what has been discussed as the excess. So the Attorney General will go ahead and take that."
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