Destination Inspection Companies, DIC’s have refuted allegations that government’s decision to seek assistance from them in the payment of the 197 million cedi judgment debt to IT Solutions provider, Bank Switch amounts to bribery.

Four out of the five DIC’s have exclusively confirmed to JOY BUSINESS that they have each officially responded and expressed interest in the Trade and Industry’s Ministry’s request for them to contribute a total of 35 million dollars towards settling the judgement debt. The companies are Ghana Link Network Service Limited, Gateway Services Limited (GSL), Inspection and Control Services (ICS) Limited and Webb Fontaine Ghana Limited.

Webb Fontaine received the letter from the minister and we responded on the 8^th of June in a positive manner. Since that time we’ve just been waiting to determine what the overall response from government would be. We have the facility available but there’s been no arrangement for payment because there’s been no scope established yet” Managing Director of Webb Fontaine Ghana Limited, Derek Clay said.

Managing Director of Gateway Services Limited, Nabali Bawa also noted “We received the letter from the ministry and responded in a positive manner that we could raise the funds to pay off the debt. But in all of this, I wonder why nobody is asking the question of where the debt came from. In my estimation, the ministry was just looking for a solution to a problem that’s been created and for us as business people we don’t see anything wrong with that”

 “We also received the letter and have responded positively. I want to add that we have been having a fruitful discussion with the Chief of Staff and we never intended going to the media with it and none of us knows how this got into the media. I heard somebody say that we the DIC’s leaked the letter to the media. It is never true. We have formed a committee and we all vowed to deal with only the Chief of Staff and other stakeholders and never the media” The Managing Director of Ghana Link Network Services Limited, Nana Asamoah Boadu also noted.

The Deputy General Manager, Operations at Inspection and Control Services, ICS Limited, William Ben Assuah also commented “Indeed we received the letter and we responded positively that we’re prepared to advance that cash to government. But of course we need to first know the scope of what we’re supposed to do and even negotiate certain terms within the contract. So I think it’s the first step in the whole process”

The Secretary to the Joint Consultative Committee of the Destination Inspection Scheme Companies, Walter Onyango says they have confirmed their readiness to make the payment once government spells out the terms of agreement. He however empathically dismissed allegations that government’s move to engage them in the payment of Bank Switch judgment debt is tantamount to bribery.

“I respectfully disagree and in the strongest terms possible because we do not see it that a cabinet minister would on government paper attempt to bribe the private sector, and we are private sector partners. What we have done does not provide a commitment. What we have done is to express interest and there is a very big difference between the two.

"So when the scope becomes very clear I do believe that all the individual members of the committee of Destination Inspection Companies would look at it and see whether it is even worth firming-up of interest with the commitment. So I think it is a little bit premature now to attempt to colour what we think is a very candid openness shown by government and assign tags to them” he noted.