Financial scandal rocks FAGRO Secretariat

Nana Akyaa Akosa, General Manager of INFOCUS PR and FAGRO 2010 Exhibition Director

Credible information reaching the Business Chronicle indicates that the National Food and Agriculture Show – FAGRO 2010 Secretariat is involved in a huge financial scandal. It owes the Ghana Trade Fair Company (GTFC), farmers, and others over GH¢30,000.

Also, the Advisory Board that supervised the hosting of the event is said not to be working in harmony, as there is bad blood between the members and the secretariat.

Since the event took place from October 12-17, 2010 at the Trade Fair Site in Accra, the FAGRO Secretariat has further been inundated with problems, as a result of the fracas.

A statement issued by the National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners Association of Ghana (NFFAWAG), and copied to the Business Chronicle, says, 'The NFFAWAG wishes to express their disappointment and regret for having associated themselves with INFOCUS PR, the organisers of FAGRO 2010 show.'

The Chairman of the Council of Elders of the NFFAWAG, Mr. George Stanley Alokodongo, who issued the statement on behalf of the farmers, stressed: 'The association from henceforth has broken alliance with INFOCUS PR and FAGRO Secretariat for the reason that the way and manner they acted during and after the FAGRO 2010 Fair was inappropriate and scandalous, and a cause of concern to all farmers and fishermen, and the entire agricultural community in Ghana.'

According to the statement, in 2010, INFOCUS PR invited them to collaborate and organise the FAGRO 2010 exhibition, to which they (NFFAWAG) obliged by providing their expertise and support to the point that the President of NFFAWAG, Mr. Philip Abayori, was elected as Chairman of FAGRO 2010, to facilitate the event, of which he performed credibly, and made the fair very successful for first time, since its inception in 2009.

The farmers and fishermen added that four committees were formed to implement FAGRO 2010, upon approval by the advisory board, namely the Finance, Exhibition, Welfare and Publicity committees, which drew up a budget for the exhibition.

But, INFOCU PR, jointly with the FAGRO Secretariat, threw the budget overboard, and made expenditures without the knowledge or approval of the advisory board, and when questioned by the Board, they said they were pre-financing the event from their own resources.

The Board insisted that all expenditures should be approved by it, and demanded that a bank account be opened purposely for the FAGRO 2010, so that all expenditures and receivables would be lodged into the account at the ADB House, the farmers revealed.

They (INFOCUS PR/ FAGRO secretariat) brought account opening forms, and made the Chairman of the Board sign, and later informed the Board that the account had been opened, and that they had started lodging all proceeds of FAGRO 2010 into it, the statement added.

Furthermore, Mr. Alokodongo emphasised: 'Unknowing to the Advisory Board, they rather lodged funds and proceeds from FAGRO 2010 into a INFOCUS PR account, to which they were the sole signatories.

But they kept on convincing the board that everything was under control, while siphoning funds generated by FAGRO into their own account, and expending them without the approval of the Advisory Board.

This made it difficult for the Board to ascertain the financial status of FAGRO 2010, and only noticed the anomaly in October 2010, when it insisted that the FAGRO Secretariat, which had been hijacked by INFOCUS PR, provide a report, the farmers fumed.

According to the farmers, the report from the secretariat indicated 90% of income generated from the event was spent on media promotion which the board disagreed with.

Statement of account provided by FAGRO secretariat quoted figure below revenue generated for FAGRO 2010. Upon further investigation by the board, it was uncovered that all the income generated from the fair had vanished and there is no existing account in the name of FAGRO 2010 which they purported to have opened at ADB.

INFOCUS PR invited 90 farmers across the country to participate in the fair but failed to feed them for three days and even declined to pay their hotel accommodation and transportation cost. It was the timely intervention of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture before the farmers were released from the hostile captivity and embarrassments, the farmers revealed.

Further investigations revealed that total rental cost of exhibition of Ghana Trade Fair Company was GH¢43,000, but INFOCUS PR sold the space to the exhibitors for GH¢120,000. While donations made to the secretariat were not accounted for.

On the third day of the exhibition, the GTFC had to close the gates, preventing the exhibitors from having access. In a quick response to salvage the situation, INFOCUS PR/FAGRO Secretariat immediately issued three dud cheques to the company.

To solve the situation, the Exhibition Director, Ms. Alberta Akosa, gave a vehicle to the company as collateral, with the pretext that her boss, Togbor Mensah, owner of INFOCUS PR and founder of FAGRO, was not available, so she could not access the bank accounts.

Meanwhile, the Board Chairman of FAGRO 2010 is requesting INFOCUS PR and the FAGRO Secretariat to issue indemnity to the board members against any liabilities from their actions.

However, Infocus PR has since refuted the claims made and has promised to give details account of events at FAGRO 2010.