Minister orders MMDAs to pay moneys to Subah for street naming


Local Government and Rural Development Minister Kwesi Oppong Ofosu has asked all Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) across the country to pay moneys to Subah Infosolutions and Street Naming Ghana Limited for the street naming exercise in their respective regions.

The letter dated, April 30, 2014 and titled “Procurement of Office Equipment for Street Naming and Property Addressing Project Activities” was addressed to all Regional Ministers.

It required each of the MMDA’s to write two cheques; one covering cost for motorbikes in the name of Subah Infosolutions and another covering cost for other field equipment, accessories and softwares in the name of Street Naming Ghana Limited.

The letter stated that all MMDA’s must take not a “comply with the directive accordingly.”

Both Subah and Street Naming Ghana Limited are members of the Jospong Group of Companies.

Subah is currently in the news for having received GHC74.3million from the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) between 2010 and 2012 for no work done.

The company was contracted to do real time electronic monitoring of the billing systems of telecom operators in the country to ensure the telcos paid the correct Communication Service Tax (CST).

Between 2010 and 2012, there was no law to back that operation so Subah did not perform any electronic monitoring on any telco and yet they were paid GHC74.3million.

Till date, government has not explained why Subah was paid that money. But review committee that looked into the Subah-GRA contract has passed the contract as okay, in spite of several unanswered questions being raised by the Ghana Chamber of Telecoms and many other Ghanaians.

Meanwhile, Subah has since November 2014 been working with some of the telcos to start the real time electronic monitoring. So far, four telcos, Glo, Airtel, Tigo and Expresso, have been connected to the Subah monitoring system. But market leaders MTN and Vodafone are yet to get hooked on.

Subah had been fingered for throwing money around in gifts to unidentified persons while not accounting for the GHC74.3million it was paid.

Its paymaster, GRA has said the GHC74.3million was payment for auditing of call data records (CDRs). But CDRs are information generated by telcos for the National Communication Authority (NCA), and they cover calls coming from abroad to Ghana, which do not attract CST.

Meanwhile, the NCA’s Director-General, Paarock VanPercy has said the NCA did not give any CDRs to Subah, and even if they did, it would not have been relevant to Subah’s mandate since inbound international calls do not attract CST.

However, four workers of NCA, including the Deputy Director General, Albert Eninful were on the Subah Committee that issued and sanctioned a report which said Subah obtained CDRs, which is contradictory to what their boss is saying.

In the midst of these contradictions and many unanswered questions, Subah is still receiving money from government for street naming. But it still not clear whether that is part of the Subah mandate and which government institution they have that street naming contract with.

 
  

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