He said the activity of sand winning has affected the provision of public infrastructure such as school blocks, affected farming activities and brought about various diseases as the uncovered pits bred mosquitoes amongst other health concerns.

Nana Akwansrahene made the appeal in an interview, after his installation ceremony at Akyem Apapam in the Eastern Region.

He said more educational structures are needed in the area to promote teaching and learning for the children to acquire knowledge to help grow the economy, but the degradation of the environment must be halted first.

Nana Akwansrahene called on the chiefs to involve themselves in the effort to stop the activities sand winners, and  also avoid the selling of lands without the prior knowledge of Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panyin, who is the sole owner of the Akyem Abuakwa lands.

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Source: GNA

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The Executive Director of the GII, Vitus Azeem told Citi News, the institutions represented on the committee were one way or the other, linked to the case “and when you constitute these people in the committee to investigate themselves, I don’t know what else anybody would have expected…it was a waste of time.”

Government in 2013 set up a technical committee to investigate an agreement between the GRA and Subah Info-solutions after news broke that the GRA had paid huge amounts of money to Subah for no work done.

Subah was contracted by the GRA to electronically monitor domestic call data records (CDRs) of the telecommunication companies in the country to enable the GRA collect appropriate taxes from the telcom companies.

The technical committee was to review and renegotiate the service agreement between the Revenue Agencies Governing Board (RAGB) and Subah Info-solution.

It was made up of representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the GRA, the National Communications Authority (NCA), the Attorney General (AG) and Subah Info-Solutions.

The report among other things said, GHC 74 million was paid to Subah-Info-solutions instead of the reported GHC 144 million for services rendered within three years.

Earlier investigations however revealed, Subah was paid GHC 144 million for no work done; a claim the committee rebuffed.

According to the GII, the committee failed to look at other aspects of the contract apart from establishing the legitimacy of the board chairman of GRA to sign the contract.

The committee in its report stated that the contract agreement between the two institutions cannot be set aside, but the GII is of the opinion that that advice could have been given the AG because, “you don’t need a committee to come out and say whether the contract can be set aside or not.”

Mr. Azeem pointed out that the terms of reference for the committee was to review and re-negotiate agreement but rather focused their attention on the validity of the contract “so I think the committee didn’t actually do us any good at all.”

By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan

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