Did you know that re-spraying and rebranding the 116 buses was a priority?

Thanks to civil society groups OccupyGhana and Citizen Movement Ghana, Ghanaians would get to know the details of the bus re-spraying and rebranding business between the Ghana government and Smartty’s Productions. The company was handed a contract to re-spray and rebrand 116 buses. The photos of former leaders and President Mahama were posted on them, with a ruling party slogan scribbled at the back of the buses.

In the 2016 budget, the project was put under ‘Priority Area’.

The government paid a total of over GH¢3.6 million (GH¢3,649,044.75), approximately about $1 million to Smartty’s for the job, but upon the public’s expression of outrage and demand for accountability, the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah ordered the Attorney General to investigate the matter. The Minister of Transport, Dzifa Attivor subsequently resigned.

After the investigations however, the government refused to make the report public!

The Attorney-General ordered a refund based on some calculations.

Curiously, the President, John Dramani Mahama rationalized the contract. Speaking at a press conference at the Flagstaff House Tuesday January 12, 2016 to mark his third year in office, he said, “the project involved re-spraying of the buses. The buses came in a dark orange colour, and the justification that was given was to differentiate them from the City Express buses that work outside the urban centres, because these were being brought in as urban buses.”

According to the President, this was how the Attorney General arrived at the conclusion that the cost of the contract was excessive. He explained that the Attorney General in determining the cost of the re-spraying and rebranding, contacted some bus companies and asked them how much it would have cost to do the job as specified on these buses.

“They gave her a figure and based on that figure and extrapolation, she determined that there has been some excess payment, and the company has been asked to refund the excess payment,” he said.

The company, Smartty’s Production was asked to refund GH¢1.9 million which was the excess payment that it was paid.

The President revealed that the company’s lawyers met with the Attorney General recently, to agree on a payment plan to refund the excess payment.

Smartty’s quietly paid up the excess amount, and the news was published by a section of the Ghanaian media who were most probably given the information.

But the two groups demanded more than just a simple quiet refund. They are insisting that the laws of Ghana if they have been broken, should be fully applied!

As the government sat on the report – though a public document and refused to make the contents known, the two groups went to court to demand access.

On April 13, 2016, a High Court presided over by His Lordship Anthony K. Yeboah made a historic judgment in the case that has broad implications for citizens right to information.

He ordered the Ministry of Transport and the Attorney General’s Department to furnish the Citizen Ghana Movement with all the requisite documents on the bus rebranding.

While, there are several other expenses in the same column in the budget, all from the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA), there are no specific details of which companies were contracted for the various services.

Transparency and accountability are cardinal parts of good governance, and as President Mahama goes to the Anti-Corruption Summit in London this week, observers would keenly watch his posture, body language and remarks on what he is doing to curb corruption in Ghana.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi