Waterville Unmasked (2)

��Sequence Of Events Leading To Joe Ghartey�s August 1, 2006 Letter �Terminating� The April 26, 2006 Contracts! Waterville Holdings Limited (BVI) has been trying to explain why it (Waterville) made a claim on the Government of Ghana (GoG) for �damages for breach of contract� among other reliefs, �after a majority of the procurement process of materials and equipment was completed by Waterville and substantial progress made by Waterville in progressing the rehabilitation of the three stadia, the government decided to cancel its contract obligations with Waterville, on August 1, 2006�. Waterville contended that �as a consequence of expenditure already made by Waterville at the time of the government�s cancellation of the contract, Waterville made an immediate claim for reimbursement of the amounts it had already spent towards its execution of the contract�� Insisting that there had been �nothing illegal or improper about Waterville�s actions, or decisions in competing for, executing or laying claims for cancellation of the contracts to construct and refurbish five stadia�, Waterville underscored that it �only sought full compensation for the work it did and the losses it incurred as a result of the government�s actions in canceling its contract�. It was within this context that Waterville was able to get the Mills Administration via a mediation process in 2010, to concede that the Kufuor Administration had illegally terminated �contracts for the rehabilitation of Ohene Djan, Baba Yara and El-Wak Stadia awarded to Waterville Holdings (BVI) Limited on 26th April, 2006��, and on basis of which the sole mediator, Lawyer Ekow Awoonor recommended the payment of Euro 10 million for the �purported termination of the contracts� under reference. However, official records available to The New Crusading GUIDE, vindicate the reasons given by former Attorney General, Joe Ghartey in his August 1, 2006 letter to Waterville, �terminating� the April 26, 2006 Contracts; a decision Waterville and the Mils Administration including the sole mediator and the EOCO appear to accept as amounting to an illegality and a violation of the Public Procurement Law! The records show a manifest failure of Waterville to perform the financial engineering services required of it in the April 26, 2006 Contracts; a situation which informed the decision of the Kufuor Administration to �terminate� the contracts as expressed in Joe Ghartey�s letter (see Tuesday, March 14, 2012 edition, page 2 of The New Crusading GUIDE for the details). �Having regard to the undeniable fact that time is of essence, Government of Ghana finds that it has no option but to raise the funding itself. Since you are unable to satisfy the fundamental condition that influenced Government of Ghana�s decision being engineering the funding, Cabinet cannot approve the contracts and therefore the contracts cannot be effective�, Joe Ghartey told Waterville. And yet six years down the line, come March 12, 2012, Waterville holds a Press Conference to tell the whole world that a �majority of procurement process of materials and equipment was completed by Waterville and substantial progress made by Waterville in progressing the rehabilitation of the three stadia, the government decided to cancel its contracts obligations with Waterville on August 1, 2006�. In spite of the above claim by Waterville, a July 7, 2006 Cabinet Sub-Committee Report published on page two (2) of this edition shows that at a meeting with Government on the same day (July 7, 2006), the representative of Waterville at the meeting, Mr. Andrea Orlandi, incidentally the man who read the Waterville press statement on March 12, 2012, �pointed out that in view of the urgent nature of the project and the delay in securing funds, it decided to request GoG to seek for bridging finance�. Government�s response was to the effect that the new arrangement being proposed by Waterville �WAS CONTRARY TO THE CONTRACT AND AS A RESULT CANNOT BE PASSED BY CABINET AND THE PARLIAMENT OF GHANA�. A decision was therefore taken by Government to seek bridge finance of an amount of US$23,282,115.14 on its own to finance the project while it (GoG) waited for the entire project fund to be secured by Waterville. Interestingly, earlier in a June 21, 2006 letter to the Minister of Finance & Economic Planning, the same Andrea M. Orlandi, had informed the Government that the anticipated main source of funding it (Waterville) was relying on �Bank Austria, as you may aware, withdrew from the projects�. The Kufuor Administration�s decision not to proceed any further with the April 26, 2006 contracts with Waterville was thus informed by a series of manifest failures on the part of Waterville to fulfil the conditions precedent of the Contracts under reference. Readers are entreated to study the contents of the July 7, 2006 Cabinet Sub-Committee Report published under the headline FOCUS ON �WATERVILLE CONTRACTS� (2), for a deeper insight into the issues at stake, and stay tuned for more revelations on �Waterville�s Duplicity� relative to the CAN 2008 contractual obligations and payments for the stadia projects.