A subcontractor of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), has been granted an order by a Kumasi High Court to sell the Assembly’s administration office building to defray a judgment debt of almost GH¢5 million.
FREDCO FD Company Limited has since pasted copies of the court order at the premises of the KMA at Adum.
According to reports, the KMA owes its contractors and business allies over GH¢50 million. The debt is said to have grown on the Assembly over four years.
Recently, the Assembly is said to have sent an SOS to the central government for bailouts.
But the government’s failure to respond led Assembly Members to threaten to resist attempts to confirm any new Chief Executive nominee the central government pays off the Assembly’s outstanding debts.
According to a report by Kumasi-based Akoma FM, FREDCO FD obtained a similar order and attached three vehicles of the KMA in 2016, serving notice it would go for more immovable properties of the Assembly if the amount from the sale of the vehicles was not enough to defray the debt.
Again in 2017, the company secured a similar order to get three other buildings including the Kumasi mayor’s residence at Plot no. 9 Old Peters Avenue at Nhyiaeso
On Wednesday, September 29, Presiding Member for KMA, Stephen Ofori told Akoma FM he fears the development could throw the Assembly off gear.
“We have been relying on internally generated funds to pay such debts. As I speak, we are in financial distress and if care is not taken, we shall fall into the abyss of insolvency,” the worried PM told host of the show.
President Akufo-Addo’s nominee for KMA, Samuel Payne, has meanwhile lamented that “even if I go through the confirmation, the financial distress of the Assembly will impede the smooth running of KMA, but we are confident that all these issues will be sorted out because we are assiduously in talks with central government to settle the debt”.
According to the 2020 Auditor General’s report, KMA used the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) committed a sum of GH¢670,720.78 to pay judgment debt to some four contractors.
The Auditor-General recommended the Assembly refund the penalty paid from the Assembly’s Internal Generated Funds (IGF) into the DACF.