TANINK GHANA DISMISSES REPORTS OF GOVT FUNDING JEEP CARS TO BLACK STARS.

The Chief Executive Officer of Tanink Ghana Ltd,
franchise holders of Chrysler, Jeep, Fiat, Alfa
Romeo, Iveco, etc in Ghana, has dismissed reports
government, funded partly or fully the Jeep Grand
Cherokees presented to the Black Stars.
Mr. Roger Klogo told Myjoyonline.com the donation
was a redemption of a long-standing promise made
by Tanink Ghana Ltd to the Black Stars and has
nothing to do with government.
According to him, he had promised the Chairman of
the Ghana Football Association ahead of the 2014
World Cup during the trial match between the
stars and Holland that if the Stars were to qualify
to the semi-final stage of the competition, he
would donate cars to all the players. He was one of
30 Chief Executives sponsored by KLM to Holland
to watch the Black Stars' friendly match against
Holland.
He said even though the Black Stars failed to
perform in Brazil, he was touched by the huge
sacrifices the Black Stars made in risking their
lives to play in a tournament that no country
initially wanted to host due to the ebola scare -
the AFCON 2015 tournament.
He said the Black Stars went ahead to play in the
tournament with countries whose citizens had
suffered ebola casualties and that was a supreme
sacrifice worth acknowledging and rewarding.
Tanink was reported to have donated brand new
Grand Cherokees to the Black Stars after they
won silver in the just ended AFCON 2015
tournament held in Equatorial Guinea.
But some media reports have suggested the
donation was funded either wholly or partly by
government, reports Mr Klogo finds
unsubstantiated.
"I want to say Tanink did present all those cars to
the Black Stars and we did it together with our
partners but without any government involvement.
No government involvement at all," he emphasised.
He said some of the partners paying for some the
cars said that they will only come on board on
condition that the duties on the cars were
exempted and of which I contacted Government
and Government agreed to grant the exemption
hence we went ahead to redeem the promise
though they came home with silver.
He hinted that, he will mobilise his partners again
in the future to present the stars with their
Maserati brand of cars should they win the next
AFCON or reach the semi-finals in Russia.
Roger Klogo said they did not want to create a
funfair about the donation and, therefore, decided
to donate on the quiet to the Stars.
He found it rather worrying that government would
be credited with the donation because the tax
exemption granted is very minimal as compared to
landed cost and the showroom price.