Evatex Logistics Limited, the mining and stevedoring company, which was awarded an auditing and revenue assurance contract at the Kotoka International Airport, has threatened to sue the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL) over the decision to terminate the contract.
Evatex has ordered GACL to withdraw the notification to terminate the contract within seven days. If GACL fails to do so, Evatex says it will proceed to court to enforce its rights, “including but not limited to its capital investments stated supra.”
A letter written by lawyers for Evatex, K-Archy & Company, stated a claim by Evatex that it has invested $64.6 million in the airport contract.
“We are instructed by our client to inform you that the purported termination is unacceptable to it, given its capital investments into this contract in the region of $64,600,000. Moreover, our client had already started executing its assignment in fulfillment of the contract and indeed prepared reports for your attention and action,” the letter stated.
The contract entitles Evatex to charge 15% of the revenue it uncovers in its auditing. The GACL has, however, stated that the company has not generated any revenue since it started operations four months ago.
Though signed in December 2024, Evatex started the implementation of the GACL contract in April 2025.
During the 2024 KPMG audit ordered by former President Akufo-Addo, Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) failed to authenticate similar claims the company had made regarding its investment in SML’s auditing and revenue assurance contracts with the government.
The CEO of Evatex, Evans Adusei, is also the CEO of Evatex. He owns both companies.
Evatex contract termination
A letter dated July 8, 2025, and signed by the Managing Director of the GACL, Yvonne Nana Afriyie Opare, had given Evatex Logistics a one-month notice for the termination of the contract.
The termination notice was served amidst investigations that revealed many legal breaches, including the procurement act, which experts say renders the contract void.
The investigation carried out by Evans Aziamor-Mensah, Adwoa Adobea-Owusu, and Manasseh Azure Awuni has revealed that Evatex Logistics Limited had no capacity to enter or deliver the contract it secured from the GACL under questionable circumstances.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has also started an investigation into the scandal and has arrested several officials, including the former board chairman of the GACL, Paul Adom-Otchere.
Evatex and SML not qualified to perform auditing and revenue assurance
A procurement expert, Kobina Ata-Bedu, has revealed that Evatex and SML should not qualify for audit and revenue assurance contracts without a license from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG).
In a right to information request to ICAG, the three reporters asked about “the position of ICAG Act 2020, Act 1058, regarding individuals and companies providing revenue assurance and auditing services in Ghana. Are such companies required to be licensed by the ICAG before they can practice or provide such services?”
The ICAG in a response letter dated July 25, 2025, said: “Pursuant to sections 2 and 3 of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana Act, 2020 (Act 1058), the Institute is mandated to regulate the accountancy profession and practice in Ghana. Auditing and non-audit practice, as an essential component of the accountancy profession, fall within the regulatory oversight of the Institute. In line with section 34 of Act 1058, all individuals and firms engaged in auditing activities are required to be licensed by the Institute. Failure to obtain the requisite licence constitutes an offence and attracts sanctions, including a fine, a term of imprisonment or both.”
On the licence status of Evatex and SML, the ICAG said, “Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) and Evatex Logistics Limited are not licensed by ICAG.”
A search at the Office of the Registrar of Companies (ORC) revealed that at the time of winning the contract at the airport, Evatex did not even have auditing and revenue assurance as part of its principal activities. Evatex only included “audit, revenue assurance, and software solutions” in its principal activities on February 6, 2025, three months after winning the airport contract to perform those services.
A tax clearance certificate and a Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) clearance certificate, which Evatex used for the single-sourced contract, shows what appeared to be a dormant company resurrected only for the Airport contract.
The SSNIT document showed that the company had no workers in 2022 and 2023. In the first four months of 2024, the year it won the contract, Evatex has no workers. By August, when the company applied for a SSNIT clearance certificate, it had only one worker.
The tax clearance certificate also showed that Evatex had no chargeable income for 2022, 2023 and 2024, the year it won the contract. The company did not pay tax in 2022 and 2023.
In 2024, it was charged a tax of only GHS2000, out of which it paid GHS1000.
The EVatex contract, which has become the subject of investigation by the Office of the Special Prosecutor, was awarded three days before the 2024 election, but dates on contract documents show that the contract may have been backdated.
The GACL, which is being investigated for the Evatex contract, also made false claims to secure a PPA approval to use the single-source procurement method for the contract. In the letter requesting approval for the single source, the GACL claimed that Evatex had “a long and successful track record of carrying out similar assignments expeditiously.” This claim is not backed by any evidence, as the Devnest CEO’s letter urging the award of the contract to Evatex would later reveal, but the PPA approved.
The GACL letter did not even state a single reason why the contract should be awarded through single-source procurement, and not through competitive tendering, contrary to the PPA rules. But the PPA approved without any question.
The request letter to the PPA, signed by Yvonne Nana Afriyie Opare, also stated: “Details in respect of the Team Composition, technical expertise and CVs of the proposed Team are in the attached profile (Annexe C).” They said Annexe C did not contain the team composition, technical expertise, and CVs of the proposed Team. The PPA did not raise questions but approved.
That Annexe C was still blank even in the final contract between Evatex and GACL, because Mrs. Yvonne Opare said at the time of signing the contract, Evatex had failed to submit the list of the team members.
Evatex and SML links
The investigation led by Manasseh Azure Awuni revealed that Evatex Logistics Limited is linked to SML, the company that was paid US$141 million by the government for auditing and revenue assurance contracts with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Ministry of Finance.
At the time of the three journalists’ first exposé on SML, the former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, had caused the SML deal to be expanded to the upstream petroleum sector and gold mining sector, entitling the company to more than US$100 million a year for five years, subject to another five-year renewal.
While the SML contract came under intense scrutiny and multiple investigations, the company entered the Ghana Airport Company through its subsidiary, Evatex, to perform what it termed ‘revenue assurance services’. Evatex, which did not officially bid for the contract and did not appear before the GACL board for a presentation, was selected under circumstances that the Executive Director for the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, Ben Boakye, describes as bizarre.
Our investigations revealed that the email address on the website of Evatex—[email protected]— is the same as the email address on the website of Evans Timbers Limited, the parent company of SML.
A search at the Office of the Registrar of Companies (ORC) also revealed that SML and Evatex, the mining company that won the airport contract, have the same beneficial owner, Evans Adusei. As stated earlier, Evans Adusei is both the CEO of SML and Evatex. He signed the Evatex contract with the Ghana Airports Company and the SML auditing and revenue assurance contracts.
The list of employees submitted by Evatex to the Ghana Airports Company to execute its contract contains the names of notable SML employees and managers. Apart from SML’s CEO, SML’s head of engineering, Hamdam Abubakar, is on the Evatex list.
SML’s head of IT, Prince Opoku Sarpong, is also on the list to perform the Evatex contract at the airport.
A former head of Legal at the GRA, Philip Jude Mensah (now an SML employee) witnessed the Evatex contract with the Ghana Airports Company. He is on the Evatex list, together with a former Commissioner of Customs and now General Manager of SML, Isaac Crentsil.
In essence, SML, which now appears to be a post-retirement destination for top GRA employees, sneaked into the airport as Evatex.
“It clearly tells you that they [SML] admit that they have been doing things wrong and they don’t have the confidence to go bidding or working with the same company,” the Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, Ben Boakye, said of SML.
“If they were genuinely convinced that what they are doing is generating returns,” Mr Boakye added, “I don’t see why you would rather metamorphose into another company to go bid for another government project.”
Backdated contract?
A close examination of the contract documents relating to the Evatex procurement shows inconsistencies in the dating of key actions, raising concerns that the contract may have been backdated. The PPA approval letter was dated December 2, 2024 and received by the Managing Director (MD) of the Airports Company on December 3.
The MD forwarded the PPA approval letter to the GACL’s Director of Procurement dated December 11, with a handwritten instruction to “proceed with the award letter.”
That instruction was received by the Director of Procurement on December 12, and the award letter was drafted accordingly and returned to the MD for signature.
The award letter, which was prepared in response to the December 11 instruction, was dated December 5, predating both the instruction and the procurement director’s receipt.
The contract with Evatex was also dated December 4, even though it was signed following the December 11 instruction.
The Managing Director, Yvonne Opare, said the dates could be a mistake, but there is evidence that appointments and contracts signed after an election often face serious scrutiny when a new party wins the election.
By December 11, when the Managing Director made a note on the PPA approval to the procurement director, the opposition NDC had won the election, and the new government was likely to raise questions about contracts awarded after the election.
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Source: myjoyonline.com
