$178m KelniGVG Deal: Ofori-Atta's 'noise' comment 'uninformed' – IMANI boss

IMANI Africa president Franklin Cudjoe has described as “uninformed”, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta’s description of the red flags raised by the think tank in relation to the $178 revenue monitoring deal between the Government of Ghana and Haitian firm KelniGVG, as “noise”.

Although the government insists the deal saves the country $1.1 million a month, Mr Cudjoe wonders why the state has been paying the firm $1.5 million per month since January for “no work done”.

To Mr Cudjoe and Imani, the deal is “needless” and a rip-off.

But speaking at the MTN Ghana Initial Public Offering (IPO) launch on Tuesday, 29 May, Mr Ofori-Atta said: “…There’s a whole lot of noise about some platform services going on and I think people have also brought up the issue of data protection. These are all things that we can find cures to without getting political and I think it is incumbent on the telcos to be able to provide solutions to some of the issues of data protection."

The minister further noted that “the issue of monitoring is important. This is not the first place that’s going to be done and we should marshal ourselves as a people in a certain direction to make sure that the nation moves ahead.”

Responding to Mr Ofori-Atta, Mr Cudjoe wrote: “How I wish people will stop asking me to respond to the Finance Minister's uninformed comment about the 'noise' over GVG. I will only say this. It is important to know that those who still think they are fighting IMANI on behalf of party or personalities involved in this saga, should know that their superiors have started consulting. It is in that spirit we have slowed our fully-cocked advocacy.

“We are talking and hope the talking ends in outcomes that will be good for Ghana. We will leave it at that for now.

“Meanwhile, the Tax Justice Network has issued a statement displeased with the responses from the supervising ministry. And all leading CSOs in Ghana met three days ago to agree on the way forward and letters detailing our specific issues and request have been served the appropriate respondents.

“All leading CSOs and think tanks in Ghana numbering 25 and a leading investigative journalist, Manasseh, cannot be wrong on this GVG deal”, he said.