So, Parliament arranged a loan facility of $80,000 for Members to buy a car. The arrangement was to the effect that Members who wanted to draw down the facility won’t be given the money physically but would have to nominate an agent who would be given then money and then the agent would give the Member of Parliament a car valued at the same amount in return.
The accusation of the Special Prosecutor is that Mr Mahama Ayariga caused a certain person, who was not an agent, to register a company as an agent, he then presented that company to parliament as his nominated agent, he got Parliament to transfer the $80,000 to the person’s account and then got the person to transfer $78,000 to him.
He then gave the person $2000 as his “commission”.
When he took custody of the money, he did not buy a car valued at $80,000 as the loan was purposed for but rather imported THREE SECOND HAND VEHICLES from Dubai.
Now the accusation is further to the effect that he then wrote to the Ministry of Finance seeking tax exemptions on these imported second vehicles. The tax exemptions were granted because it was solicited on the grounds that the vehicles were to be used for official purposes by him as Member of Parliament.
When the vehicles came however HE SOLD THEM! Now, when a tax exemption is granted upon a condition, any change of condition nullifies the exemption, it is contended by the Special Prosecutor that Mr Ayariga had to pay Ghc 200,000 before the sale of the vehicles as taxes.
When the Special Prosecutor begun his investigations, Mr Ayariga quickly went, according to him to pay that Ghc 200,000 to the GRA! Taxes he would otherwise not have paid!
Now, the Special Prosecutor would further say that even when the exemptions were granted, Mr Ayariga paid only Ghc 6000 instead of the Ghc 36,000 which he had to pay.
The sum of these allegations is that,Mr Ayariga used his office as Member of Parliament to fraudulently obtain a loan, diverted the loan for another purpose and for his personal gain and in so doing failed to honor his tax obligations.
Just the part one….
Ghanawish.com
