The African Education Watch (Eduwatch), a policy think tank, has threatened to drag the Ministry of Education before the Office of the Special Prosecutor should it fail to recover a refund of an amount of GHC 859,000 paid to TANIT Ltd, an IT firm.
Eduwatch wants the Education Ministry to take legal action against the IT service provider for consequential losses incurred as a result of the failure of TANIT Ltd to deliver on its contractual obligations.
A statement issued by Eduwatch gave a 30-day ultimatum for the Ministry of Education to take action against the company on the matter or it instructs its lawyers to file an official complaint of financial loss at the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
In July 2021, the Ministry of Education signed a contract worth GHC 5.7 million with TANIT Ltd, an IT Service Provider, to design, develop and deploy digital teacher training content and platform under the GALOP Project by November 2021.
The service was required to meet a target of training 40,000 teachers by the end of November 2021.
However, TANIT Ltd failed to deliver according to schedule, leading to the expiration of the contract, compelling the Ministry of Education to train the 40,000 teachers on another existing platform available to the Ministry of Education without any additional cost.
Reports say the Ministry has since written to TANIT Ltd for a refund of the
initial payment of GHC 859,000 but to no avail.
The IT firm is allegedly insisting on the payment of the remaining GHC 4.9 million based on its claim that the contract was completed regardless of the delay.
Eduwatch thus maintained that it supports every effort by the Ministry of Education to recover all payments made to TANIT Ltd in view of their non-performance, adding there was no value for money and spending efficiency in the said contract.
“Per our information, TANIT LTD was contracted through a single source
procurement activity which is regrettably a norm at the Ministry of Education.
While the firm is virtually unknown among leading IT Solutions companies in Ghana, one wonders about the justification for its single-source procurement by the Ministry of Education. The failure of TANIT LTD to deliver is enough
indication that the company lacked the capacity to deploy within the five
months contracted period. A competitive procurement approach would have
provided better options.
“The education sector has very severe funding constraints, the reason there exists over 5,000 schools taking place under trees and sheds, 4,000 primary schools lacking a JHS, leading to high drop rates especially in rural areas, and 40% of basic school pupils lacking desks.
“In such a situation, we can only continue to appeal to the Honourable Minister of Education to prioritize spending efficiency, value for money, and make competitive procurement the norm for all major procurement activities at the Ministry of Education and its agencies.”
