The Chamber of Local Governance (ChaLoG) has asked the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate an alleged corruption associated with government funds into the private company account of Digital City Solutions Ltd (DCS), contrary to the officially published Government Of Ghana (GOG) account myassembly.gov.gh.
In a statement signed and issued by its Executive Secretary, Romeo Elikplim Akahoho on Tuesday, ChaLoG stated that the myassembly.gov.gh payment platform was nothing more than a decoy account created and solely managed on a day-to-day basis by DCS.
Neither the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) nor any of the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) had any involvement with it.
“This so-called GOG payment platform to the best of our knowledge has not been approved for the collection, lodgment and retention of GOG funds by the Parliament of Ghana. The ulterior motive of the platform was to deliberately deceive the rate paying public into believing it was the official GOG account to collect their property rate taxes effective 2023.”
“The illegal payment platform is being used as a channel to SECRETLY (with the tacit connivance and endorsement of the GRA Commissioner General) divert all payments (GOG Funds) into the DCS private company account as aforementioned, instead of the Consolidated Fund (GRA Act, 2009. Act 791) or directly into the MMDAs Accounts (Local Governance Act, 2016. Act 936),” he stated.
Mr. Akahoho further claimed that “DCS deducts its 30 percent commission from the GOG funds in its custody AT SOURCE without any audit or any payment of taxes to GRA.
ChaLoG wishes to officially draw your attention to this illegality, which undoubtedly contradicts the Public Financial Management Act 2016 (Act 921) and the associated corruption and underdeclaration of the 70% share of funds for the MMDAs, negatively impacting the execution of developmental projects across the country.
