The Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid, has said the Mahama administration sold state vehicles at least two days to the inauguration of Nana Akufo-Addo as President.<\/p>\n
Disputing claims by Former President John Mahama that he left \u2018a sea of vehicles\u2019 for the Akufo-Addo administration, Mr. Hamid said the current administration came to meet only 179 vehicles.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”ZajnV5dLfpjtZLWsun2bnjBxfeGSbLZG”]”The vehicles that they handed over to us, per the documents they themselves compiled and gave to us are 179,\u201d the Minister stated on Eyewitness News<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But beyond the 179, he said a number of vehicles were sold to government officials at the time.<\/p>\n NDC Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Samuel George, had previously indicated that about 271 of vehicles possibly thought to be missing were purchased by some officials<\/strong><\/span><\/a> of the past government.<\/p>\n Staffers and state officials are allowed to purchase vehicles which have been in use for two years and longer.<\/p>\n Mr. Hamid noted that, the former Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, listed among other vehicles, 52 Hyundai i10s left for the Akufo-Addo administration, but \u201cI am telling you on authority that we haven\u2019t seen a single Hyundai i10 vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said there was documentation to the effect that Julius Debrah sold a Nissan Sentra vehicle to a staffer in the VIP protection unit two days before the handing over on January 7, 2017.<\/p>\n “It would seem to me that even though these vehicles were in the hands of their officials, they proceeded to sell them off to their officials whilst giving us a list and pretending that those vehicles were available,\u201d Mr. Hamid said.<\/p>\n The Akufo-Addo administration put in place a task-force to retrieve missing state cars, and the Information Minister said the committee was “still compiling” a list.<\/p>\n The saga of the missing cars at the Presidency was revived after Mr. Mahama refuted allegations<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that members of his administration stole cars from the presidential fleet during an interview on GTV on Tuesday.<\/p>\n