The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) is under fire following its decisions to procure a software system at a tune of $66million.
The Operational Business Suit (OBS) system procured two years ago, was to enhance service delivery to customers in all the trust’s 50 branches across the country.
However, concerns had been raised about the cost of the project considering the meager pensions paid the trust’s contributors.
Commenting on the development Wednesday on Morning Starr, a Technology Expert Maximus Ametorgor said the amount involved is “ridiculous.”
“…What exactly does the software do? If we invest 10 percent of that money in a local software developer [he/she] could have developed a similar or better system,” he argued.
According to him, for an institution like the SSNIT, the OBS system should not have exceeded $200.000.00 but “if you are mentioning a million even to $66million it is ridiculous.”
Also, the co-founder of Mpedigree who is also the vice president of IMANI Selorm Brantie weighed in on the amount saying it should not have caused more than $15million.
He said the pension scheme could have engaged the services of a local company to cut down cost.
“There are enough companies in this country with expertise to deploy all of these things without having to bring in all these anonymous foreign entities that come and run our systems for us. There is enough expertise locally.
“When there is a track record of Ghanaian companies that have gone on and deployed large systems handling millions of specific data in different countries…I don’t see why we always have to go and bring some kind of foreign system to come and deploy locally when there are people locally who can do this for a quarter the price some of these other people offer,” he told Morning Starr host Francis Abban.
The trust, however, defended the cost of the project. According to its Acting Corporate Affairs Manager Victoria Abaidoo, the system was acquired after thoroughly exhausting the entire procurement process.
“…The usual thing SSNIT will do is to go through the procurement process. So, they went through the procurement process to get the vendors to also make the entire system for the trust,” she explained on Morning Starr Wednesday.
