A deputy Communications Minister George Andah has labeled as “unreasonable” IMANI Africa’s resistance to the $89.4 million contract between the government of Ghana and Kelni GVG.
According to him, the only justification for the opposition was IMANI doing the bidding of its paymasters who see the contract as a threat to them.
“What is all these noise about? You would clearly realize that unless there is somebody who has reason to hide revenue that’s been generated, there’s no other reason to fight against the law being enforced…which is backed by a solid policy,” Mr. Andah told Starr news’ Ibrahim Alhassan.
Kelni GVG, a Haitian originated company, was awarded a contract by the government for design, development and implementation of a common platform for traffic monitoring, revenue assurance, and mobile money monitoring and fraud management—a service already being rendered by Afriwave and Subah Info Solution.
IMANI has constantly questioned the rationale behind the new contract with Kelni GVG, describing it as wasteful and aimed at milking the public purse.
“Indeed, there has been no such report of underperformance by the stakeholders that contracted Subah.
“The issue then is why did the Ministry of Communications go ahead and sign a new contract under the name of a common monitoring platform for a service that is already being rendered under an existing contract by a fellow government agency?” President of IMANI Africa Franklin Cujdoe stated on Morning Starr on May 17, 2018, calling for the immediate cancellation of the contract.
But in his reply, the Deputy Communication Minister explained that Kelni GVG’s scope of execution is different from Afriwave’s and Subah Info Solution’s stressing that, “We will enforce this policy and we will do everything to make sure that at the end of the day the government and the people of Ghana are going to get the right data that we need.”
He added: “What could be better than having a system that’s giving us the information real time , to inform proper planning if we are saying that we are building a ‘Ghana beyond Aid’? It is unreasonable to try and challenge whatever it is that we are doing.”
The government, he said, is focused on the work that it is doing and will not be sidetracked.
“We won’t be distracted. We will focus and make sure that we monitor the revenue,” he stated.
The Kelni GVG contract upon its signing stipulates that a payment of $1,491,225 be paid monthly for a 5-year period, amounting to a total of USD 89,473,500.
Per the terms of the contract, which was signed in December 2017, the monthly payments are supposed to begin no later than 30 days after the contract was signed.
This, by inference, means that the state through the Ministry of Communications owes at least $5.96 million as of May this year.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
