{"id":467638,"date":"2018-02-26T10:11:03","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T10:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/26\/ssnit-officials-to-face-amidu-over-72m-software-scandal\/"},"modified":"2018-02-26T10:11:03","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T10:11:03","slug":"ssnit-officials-to-face-amidu-over-72m-software-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/26\/ssnit-officials-to-face-amidu-over-72m-software-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"SSNIT officials to face Amidu over $72m software scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">General News of Monday, 26 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>todaygh.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-26<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/37497404.295.jpg\" alt=\"Martin Amidu Special Prosecutor11\" title=\"Martin Amidu Special Prosecutor11\" width=\"295\" height=\"172\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Martin Amidu, Special Prosecutor<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519639863_336_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\"> Some officials of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) who  were allegedly involved in the $72 million software scandal will soon face the Special Prosecutor, Mr. Martin Amidu, Today can report.<\/p>\n<p>This follows the Economic and Organized Crimes Office\u2019s (EOCO) investigation which has indicted some managers of the state-owned institution of their various roles they played in the SSNIT ICT infrastructure scandal which dominated the headlines last year.<\/p>\n<p>The scandal involves the procurement of ICT infrastructure for the Trust at a monstrous cost of $72 million, a price tag that was well over the initial amount estimated for the project.<\/p>\n<p>Acting Chief Executive Officer of EOCO, ACP K. K. Amoah, told journalists in Accra on Friday, February 23, 2018 that, a docket on the outcome of the investigation, which was concluded in November last year, had  been forwarded to the Attorney-General\u2019s office for further action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAttorney-General [Gloria Akuffo] is studying the docket and you will soon hear from her office. Some officers are being held responsible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He, however did not give out the names of the indicted officials.<\/p>\n<p>But  our checks at the Attorney General\u2019s office indicated that, \u201cthe docket is waiting for the country\u2019s first special  prosecutor to  commence prosecution on the suspects\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Attorney General has finished studying the docket, and soon Mr. Amidu will take it up and deal with the issue in court\u201d, our source said.<\/p>\n<p>EOCO opened investigations into the scandal at the pensions trust when it came to light that the $72 million spent to procure and install the software and other hardware systems known as the Operational Business Suite (OBS) in a bid to digitise the Trust exceeded the market price.<\/p>\n<p>SSNIT was also criticised for failing to conduct a proper investigation into its MIS Manager, Dr Caleb Afaglo, who was  alleged to be occupying the position with fake certificates.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Afaglo had claimed to have Master\u2019s and Doctorate degrees, but EOCO found that he does not have even a first degree.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of the scandal, it emerged that although several firms submitted significantly lower estimates to execute the IT project, management of the Trust decided to select a supplier whose estimate was the most expensive.<\/p>\n<p>One bid sighted by Today was just estimated at GH\u00a217 million or $3.8 million dollars, although meeting all but one of the criteria for selection.<\/p>\n<p>The contracts documents also  intercepted by Today also showed  that  the contract sum was initially pegged at $34 million and not $72 million.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 56 updated by: -1 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General News of Monday, 26 February 2018 Source: todaygh.com 2018-02-26 Martin Amidu, Special Prosecutor Some officials of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) who were allegedly involved in the $72 million software scandal will soon face the Special Prosecutor, Mr. Martin Amidu, Today can report. This follows the Economic and Organized Crimes Office\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":464588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}