Illegal deals allegedly orchestrated by the Western Regional Manager of the Metro Mass Transit (MMT) company, Lawrence Fianu, and four others have resulted in the embezzlement of more than GH¢2.5 million belonging to the company. As a result, the regional manager and his accomplices have been dismissed. The workers are dissatisfied with the action and are instead demanding their arrest and prosecution. According to sources, the dismissed officials were asked to refund only GH¢520,000 of the amount, with no information on how the remaining would be retrieved. The other officials are the accountant, Mr Stephen Ayisi; the auditor, Mr Dominic Mensah; the transport officer, Rev Abraham Ogo, and the traffic supervisor, Mr Richard Baffoe Antwi. They are alleged to have forged the serial numbers of old receipts and used them for the deals. Reports from other regional offices of the company indicate widespread malpractices that threaten the survival of the MMT. It is suggested that company faces imminent collapse if the government and other shareholders do not intervene to stop the dissipation of company funds by managers and other officials. Even though not clearly stated, the Ministry of Transport's decision, last week, to remove Mr Maxwell Awuku from office as the Managing Director of the company was not unrelated to the challenges facing the company. His deputy, Mr Martin Afram, has also been asked to report at the Ministry of Transport to be re-assigned. The sources said the officers in the Western Region, were also said to have introduced several ghost names on the company’s payroll, which raked in huge amounts of money which they pocketed. An official of the company, who was part of the auditing and investigations team, told the Daily Graphic that the Western Regional office was financially distressed as a result of the deal, with more than 20 of the company’s buses grounded. One of the documents made available to the Daily Graphic indicated that a church at Elubo, had contracted the MMT to release 10 buses for a crusade in Accra for three days on July 20, 2012 at a cost of GH¢9,200. Interestingly, only one Jonckheere bus, with registration number AW 460-09, appeared on the request form, with the driver’s name given as I.K. Bondzie. A bus inspector, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, said the receipt number 1153816 entered on the request form was forged, explaining that it was an old receipt number. The GH¢9,200 paid, according to the audit, was under-invoiced, as the amount for the period should have been about GH¢16,000. The audit official said that amount and others from several other deals were not credited to the MMT’s account. That aside, many buses that were used for election duties in the northern part of the region by the security agencies who supervised the electoral process from December 5 to 9, 2012 were paid for but not credited to the company. According to the audit, requests were made by political parties, schools and churches for excursions and other functions which were also not entered in the books of the company. Reacting to the report, the Media Liaison Officer of the Ministry of Transport, Mr Egypt Kudoto, confirmed that the issue had come to the attention of the ministry. He, however, explained that although there had been financial irregularities, the amount involved in respect of that case was GH¢9,200. Mr Kudoto said most of the institutions had placed monitoring and investigative mechanisms in place to address some of those challenges and, therefore, did not have to refer such matters to the ministry. According to him, it was after the five officials had been dismissed that the Western Regional Manager went to the ministry to verbally protest. He, however, said the minister asked the manager to put the protest into writing, but “as we speak now he has still not submitted it”. Meanwhile, in a statement, the Ministry of Transport said in line with a directive from the Presidency, it had appointed Mr Noble Appiah as the new Managing Director of the MMT. Mr Appiah takes over from Mr Awuku. Until his appointment, Mr Appiah was the Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC). Mr John Awuku Dzuazah has been appointed the new Deputy Managing Director of the MMT. All the appointments take effect from June 17, 2013. The Ministry of Transport expressed its appreciation to the two men for their contribution to the company in the last four years.