Former Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Murtala Mohammed, has accused the current government of being fraudulent.

He quoted a report, allegedly prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which stated that the value of the plants and machinery at the Komenda Sugar Factory had depreciated to $12,029,715, down from the initial valuation of $34,678,400.

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Murtala Mohammed alleged that the PwC never conducted this second evaluation.

He noted that when the announcement was made, Hon. Atta Mills, the MP for the area, questioned how a facility could depreciate by such a large amount in less than a year.

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Speaking on JoyNews AM Show, the Tamale Central MP said, “This government is a complete fraud. I remember I challenged the Minister as at that time, and I said they deliberately were devaluing it to sell the facility to their friends. PricewaterhouseCoopers is a reputable auditing firm and accounting firm; they would not do that, and I am challenging multimedia to find out whether PricewaterhouseCoopers did that auditing.”

Mr Mohammed stated that when the minister was challenged, he claimed that a technical team had conducted the evaluation.

However, Mr Mohammed asserted that this was a lie.

He emphasised that it was PricewaterhouseCoopers who conducted the first evaluation and presented their findings to the parliamentary committee for Trade, Industry, and Tourism.

“So, clearly, this government is a fraud, and what they were seeking to do was to defraud the people of this country because they felt President Mahama went into an investment, an investment that they felt extremely uncomfortable to comprehend with.”