Over 400 state vehicles ‘missing’ not 200 – Pratt to Gov’t

Eugene Arhin, Director of the Communications at the Presidency, informed Ghanaians earlier this week that over Two Hundred (200) vehicles are nowhere to be found among the fleet of cars at the Presidency.

The vehicles were given to the officials of the past NDC government to use and to return after exiting office.

But in a statement on Thursday, former Deputy Chief of Staff, Johnny Osei Kofi, said Mr. Arhin’s claims were “false, baseless and without merit”, adding that they represented a continuation of the “distortions and bad faith that have characterised the conduct of the NPP side of the Transition team.”

The statement also explained that “as part of the transition process, both the Assets and Logistics Committee on the NPP side were given a detailed list of all vehicles in the pool at the Presidency. More importantly, a total of 641 vehicles were listed and properly accounted for. This was duly captured in the handing over notes.”

Speaking on Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’, Ag. Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Nana Boakye stated that the “cars that are there as I talk now are 173. In fact, the Ford Expedition is not part . . . That car is not part of the fleet of vehicles . . . 173 cars, the registration numbers are there.

“This is a list of cars that comes from Jubilee House. The car’s number, the vehicle’s description, chassis number, and the leader in Jubilee House who’s been given for use and any other thing whether it’s bullet proof or not bullet proof are all there. These are serviceable. Serviceable vehicles at the Flagstaff House are 173 . . .

“Even the Ford Expedition that was given as a gift to the President (John Mahama) and he said that its been added to the fleet of vehicles at the presidency (Ford Expedition vehicle presented to former President John Dramani Mahama as gift by Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Kanazoe)…and that it is for the government and has been registered, and so it’s part of the State cars. It is not part of the vehicles. It’s not there. So, somebody should come and show us where the vehicles are.”

But in a quick riposte, the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has found the revelations shocking because to him, the NPP government should be able to account for the missing vehicles.

According to him, if the Nana Addo led government claims that over 200 cars are missing from the Flagstaff House, they should disclose the list of the missing vehicles with the chassis numbers and any vital information that will assist in investigations.

Mr. Pratt doubted the government’s disclosure by alluding to the list of 641 vehicles that the former Deputy Chief of Staff, Johnny Osei Kofi put out on Thursday and claimed there is no way 208 vehicles could be said to have gone missing.

To him, if the vehicles that were at the Flagstaff House were 641, then it means over 400 cars were taken by officials of the previous government.

“How come you say that something of yours is missing but you don’t know that particular thing? Is that not strange? That you claim you’ve lost something but you don’t know exactly what’s missing because the first thing in determining that something is missing is you know what’s missing,” he said.