NLA boss awards 11 contracts to sister-in-law in violation of procurement law

Kofi Osei Ameyaw, NLA boss

A Corruption Watch investigation has found that the Director General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) Kofi Osei Ameyaw awarded 11 contracts in excess of half-a-million cedis to his sister-in-law in violation of the procurement law.

Details of this contract award have raised an apparent case of conflict of interest.   

The Public Procurement (Amendment) Act, 2016 confirms Osei Ameyaw as the Entity Head of the NLA who is authorized to approve contracts worth up to GHS100,000.

Under his approval, therefore, his sister-in-law, Rama Hassan secured contracts for her sole proprietorship, Ram’s Kitchen in November 2017 to supply and distribute end of year packages.

A major concern is being raised over how Ram’s Kitchen secured 11 separate local purchase orders from the NLA (LPOs), some containing items that untenably could not be broken up but should be bulked under a single purchase order.

For instance, separate LPOs were prepared for different weights of the same brand of rice that was bought by Ram’s Kitchen. The same was done for beverage drinks on the documents.

All the local purchase orders, which were prepared by the Administrative/Human Resource Department of NLA, bear the same date – 29^th November, 2017.

Besides, all the 11 contracts fell below the threshold of GHS100,000, which Osei Ameyaw is authorised to approve, with the highest amount being GHS99,470.

If the items were bulked together under a single LPO, the total figure would have amounted to GHS579,576, meaning it would have pushed the threshold beyond the approval threshold of the Director General, necessitating that he sought approval from the Entity Tender Committee.

Procurement Expert Godfrey Ewool expresses concern that separate local purchasing orders were prepared on similar items for a single supplier, adding it could have been reasonable if multiple suppliers were involved.

“Did they [NLA] prepare? Did they think about this? Did they plan to procure these items? What is the reason that all these items were not bulked together as one?” he queried. “And, breaking the bulk is not necessarily wrong but you need to convince the Entity Tender Committee that for good reason you want to break bulk because, let’s say, you don’t have suppliers in the system that do both rice and tomatoes or chicken and oil. So, you have to decide.”

According to Section 21(6) of the Public Procurement (Amendment) Act, 2016 Act 914): “A procurement entity shall not divide a procurement order into parts or lower the value of a procurement order to avoid the application of the procedures for public procurement under this Act.”

Section 92 of the Public Procurement Act also provides that “any person who contravenes any provision of this Act commits an offense and where penalty has not been provided for the offenses, the person is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 1,000 penalty units or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years or to both”

Fighting back

Speaking to Corruption Watch via the telephone, Rama Hassan dismissed suggestions she got the contract because of her relationship with Osei Ameyaw, arguing that she went through due process to secure the contract to supply and distribute the items.

Fighting back, she said “… I heard about the [bid]. I applied for it, I went through all the process and I was given [the contracts]… I gave them my prices, I went round the city, looked for warehouses to get them my prices and… there is nothing showing that because I’m Rama…I got the contract… To the best of my knowledge that was it.”

Meanwhile, checks by Corruption Watch reveal that Ram’s Kitchen has ceased operations three months after executing the NLA contracts.

Mr Osei Ameyaw

In spite of Mr. Osei Ameyaw declining to grant an interview to Corruption Watch, he appeared on the Point Blank, a programme on Accra-based Citi FM on Monday, questioning why individuals should be prevented from applying for contracts because they have a relative in a respective institution.

This apparent case of conflict of interest comes nearly four months after a Corruption Watch investigation found another case of conflict of interest involving the NLA Director General taking a personal loan of 60,000 dollars from a supplier of the NLA, Kojo Graham’s Lots Services.

It was reported that Graham, after a period of non-payment and denial of receipt of the money by Mr Osei Ameyaw, reported the matter to the Ghana Police Service.