Paul Adom-Otchere, the Board Chairman of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), has had to defend expenditure on Christmas inspirations at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) in the last few days.
After an invoice addressed to him began circulating on social media, his first reaction came only 24 hours later. Afom-Otchere responded with a Facebook post in which he listed six facts in support of the spending.
Two of the facts spoke to the figures involved in the inspirations and read as follows: “FACT: The beautiful Christmas tree standing at Terminal 3 and 3 others altogether cost GH¢ 34,000, which was graciously provided by Jandel Limited at a heavy discount. (We thank Jandel Limited)
“FACT: The other inspirations were provided by Favors and Arts for a total cost of GH¢84,000 out of which GHC 50,000 was obtained via sponsorship.”
It brought the total spending on the Christmas inspirations to GH¢118,000 but GHC50,000 less because of a sponsorship package by one of the vendors. So per his post, the total spending was 68,000.
On Tuesday, January 12, 2022, edition of his biweekly programme, Good Evening Ghana, Adom-Otchere mounted yet another defence to better explain the amount that went into the project.
Per his new calculation, the total amount of money spent on inspirations for two terminals, 2 & 3, at KIA came up to GH¢128,366.
The company he restated called the advertisers and requested sponsorship that was paid in cash to the tune of GH¢50,000 from DPP agency because of the representation the board had made.
“So what then is the total, the total then is 128,366 minus 50,000 and that brings us to 78,366 Ghana cedis. That is the amount that was spent in 2021 compared to 2016 five years ago, and this is for two terminals, that was one terminal.
“This is the figure of what was spent, not what has been bandied around. I have seen a Graphic Online story that says 118 was spent and this is correct when you do the math of the total cost minus the sponsorship that we gained for the company,” he stressed.
He also explained in the interview that the invoice bearing his name was not used by the company.
Earlier in his Facebook post, he had stated thus: “It is ridiculous for anyone to say that the invoices from these two reputable companies were issued in the name of the Board Chairman, that just means the author of such spurious allegations has insufficient acquaintance with corporate workings.”
