The deal covering the purchase of some 50 buses for the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMT) has not been inflated by US$100 million per bus, Zyle Daewoo Commercial Vehicle, a Korean-based manufacturer of Daewoo branded buses has said.

It follows assertions by the host of ‘With All Due Respect’, Mr Kelvin Taylor, that the unit cost of the buses had been overpriced – according to his checks from Alibaba.

Instead of a bus being sold for US$75,000, it was sold to the MMT at US$175,000.

Based on the allegation, a dismissed security coordinator of the MMT, Mr Lawal Fuseini petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to probe certain government officials including Chief of Staff Frema Osei-Opare, Transport Minister Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, Deputy Transport Minister Nii Kwartei Titus-Glover, the Managing Director of MMT Albert Adu Boahen and CEO of GH-Daewoo Motors Ghana Limited Isaac Ofori Poku in connection with the transaction which he deems fraudulent.

In his opinion, “When you deduct the sum total of the actual cost given by the Chinese company of CIF US$ 3,750, 000.00 from the cost quoted by the government of Ghana of CIF US$ 8,750,000.00 in the said contract document, an excess of US $5,000, 000.000 is unaccounted for in this fraudulent contract.”

However, in a letter dated 15 October 2019 and addressed to the CEO of GH-Daewoo Motors Ghana Limited, the Korean company said its attention has been to “a social media publication to the effect that our representative in Ghana, GH-Daewoo, has been implicated for overpricing the cost of our bus models GL6127HK and GDW6121HK for US$175,000 each instead of US$75,000 as itis purportedly shown on the Alibaba website. We would like to state the following in order to understand the situation more correctly: We, Zyle Daewoo HQ, state categorically that we sold the models GL6127HK and GDW6121HK to our Distributor, GH-DAEWOO MOTORS LTD in Ghana at US$175,000 per unit”.

“We strongly issue a disclaimer and repudiate the claim by Kelvin Taylor that our models GL6127HK and GDW6121HK should have been sold for $75,000”, explaining that the Guilin GDW6121HK model displayed on Alibaba “is just sample price and lowest and standard price in order to tempt the customer”.

According to Zyle, “There is no specification fixed”, noting: “It is an idea price with no adding option price.”

It clarified that: “Our exporting models to GH (GDW6121HK and GL6127 H K) include many Korean parts such as E/G, TM, Clutch etc. We, Zyle Daewoo HQ, supplied to Guilin for assembly. Meanwhile, the Alibaba price is based on only all Chinese components.

“There is no mention [of] warranty condition and training and PDI [or] parts and dealer margin for an additional cost to be included,” the Korean company added.