Lawyer for the Freight Forwarder who sued the government over its contract with West Blue Consulting Ghana limited, Alex Afenyo Markin has described as an error, the decision by government to proceed with a single sourced contract.
[contextly_sidebar id=”FqR0FM2FG6r0UK0ehBisIkO790LsNqeI”]Mr. Afenyo Markin however believes the court will resolve the issue.
In what seems as an apparent defiance of industry’s demands for transparency and due process, the Ministry of Finance revealed that it has signed a contract with West Blue, though it could not tell how much tax cedi will go into paying for the services of West Blue.
Speaking to Citi News, Alex Afenyo Markin maintained that going ahead to sign the contract does not in any way put finality to the matter which is expected to be heard at the Court on Thursday.
“What the agencies and government are trying to do is to as it were test the ability of the court to deal with matters of this nature,… they had told the court that nothing has been done in the furtherance of the directive from the chief of staff that was just about two weeks ago, so if suddenly they are now coming to say that there is no contract, that is okay, they should meet in court and they should tell the honorable judge that this is what we’ve done, then the judge will compare and contrast” he said.
The Head of the Tax Policy Unit of the Ministry of Finance, Anthony Dzadra confirmed at a news conference that a Presidential directive had asked the Ministry of Finance to engage West Blue on a single sourced contract.
The signing on of West Blue Consulting will mean that they will take over the Classification, Valuation and Risk Management functions from the Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) at Ghana’s ports.
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citifmonline.com/Ghana