General News of Monday, 18 June 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-06-18
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful appeared before Parliament on May 31, 2018 over the controversial KelniGVG deal
The Ghana Anti-corruption Coalition (GACC), along with some other civil society groups, has served notice it will head to court over issues relating to the controversial KelniGVG deal.
This follows the Coalition’s petition to the government and the Communication Ministry asking to be furnished with documents relating to the contract.
Speaking in an interview with Citi News, the Communications Officer of the Coalition, Abdul-Kudus Hussein, described the contract as fishy, hence the move.
“One of the specific requests we made was to get all material information and supporting documentation relating to the procurement process leading to the award of the contract to KelniGVG,” he stated.
The Coalition made a six-point demand to the ministry “only for the ministry to reply saying they are in the process of locating the document,” Abdul-Kudus Hussein recalled.
In his view, either the government does not have a strong record system or the “the deal as we suspect is very fishy and as a result, they are trying to cover up.”
“As a coalition, we are in the process of seeking redress at the law courts,” Abdul-Kudus Hussein added.
IMANI Africa also questioned why it is taking government weeks to locate the contract documents for the revenue monitoring Common Platform.
“Folks, your ministry has signed a $178m contract with your money to locate in real time, apparently stolen revenues by the telcos. And yet it cannot locate all the documents it signed for the deal after two weeks,” a statement signed by IMANI Africa President, Franklin Cudjoe remarked.
Two individuals, Sara Asafu-Adjaye and Maximus Amertogoh, have also filed a case restraining the government from implementing the Common Platform.
The two are concerned with the privacy of Ghanaians.
KelniGVG was given an $89 million contract to develop and oversee the Common Platform for the country.
The implementation of the Common Platform is in line with the Communication Service Tax (Amendment) Act, 2013, Act 864.
Most of the criticism of the deal has come from think tank IMANI Africa, which has raised privacy concerns and questioned the credibility of KelniGVG.
It has maintained that this deal mirrors the controversial agreements the state entered into with Subah Infosolutions and Afriwave Telcom Ltd in 2010 and 2016 respectively.