General News of Thursday, 7 September 2017
Source: citifmonline.com
2017-09-07
The crime office initially gave itself a week to probe into the scandal involving SSNIT
The Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO), has given itself a week more, to conclude investigations into how the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) , spent a whopping $72 million on Operational Business Suite (OBS) in a bid to digitize the Trust.
The Executive Director of EOCO, K. K. Amoah, revealed this to Accra-based Peace FM, where he confirmed that his outfit had uncovered “some corrupt deals.”
He said the crime office was looking to complete the investigation within seven days “because this matter is of interest to a lot of people.”
“As I speak to you, my men are still investigating some workers and officials of SSNIT. There is also a gentleman called Hagan we have interviewed. He was the Project Manager,” Mr. Amoah noted in the interview.
Among the instances of corruption, he said, “some items stated in the contract were not supplied. $34 million was set aside for the contract. It was bloated to about $72-73 million. We haven’t completed with the investigations, but I believe the figures may go up.”
Background
SSNIT is being investigated by EOCO for blowing $72 million on procuring and installing a software and other hardware systems known as the Operational Business Suite in a bid to digitize the Trust.
The cost, which was originally $34 million, later ballooned to $66 million and then to $72 million due to maintenance and additional infrastructure.
The Board Chairman of SSNIT, Kwame Addo Kufuor, in an earlier interview with Citi News, said about 15 people had appeared before EOCO as witnesses in the matter.
SSNIT has also contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an audit into the contract.
EOCO also raided the premises of Perfect Business Systems (PBS), the IT firm which executed the $72 million project.
Perfect Business Systems, a local IT company, partnered Silverlake consortium, a Malaysian firm, to install and procure the software and hardware systems for the suite.
SSNIT’s General Manager in charge of Management Information Systems (MIS), Caleb Afaglo, was also sacked for securing the job with fake degrees after he had been investigated by EOCO.
It is suspected that his questionable qualifications contributed to failings within the Trust that led to the contract award with its attendant expenditure overruns.
