$89 million KelniGVG contract needs to be reviewed’ – Former Minister

A former Deputy Minister of Communications, Ato Sarpong, has described as unfair the decision of the government to award a multimillion dollar contract to a Ghanaian/Haitian company, KelniGVG for the provision of oversight and revenue assurance monitoring in the telecommunications sector.

Speaking to Neil Armstrong–Mortagbe, host of the Morning Xpress on Radio XYZ 93.1MHZ, the former Deputy Minister stated that the $89 million deal is only duplicating the work of Subah and Afriwave which were contracted under the previous government to do a similar job.

“My thinking is that this whole process will not lead us anywhere, because whatever we are asking this GVG group to come and do, Subah could have done, Afriwave could have done: If we had tightened their contracts that demanded that they install and deploy a common platform. It’s as simple as that, “said Mr Sarpong.

The former minister’s claim corroborates the stance of Think Tank, IMANI Africa which has stated the GVG deal is a waste of state resources. The Ministry Of Communication, however, insists that Ghana is making a monthly savings of $1.1 million on account of KelniGVG’s engagement.

But Mr Sarpong, a player in the communications industry, believes the communications sector is being turned into “a political playground” by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government with such deals. He said the deals the erstwhile Mahama government entered into with Subah and Afriwave could have been reviewed to serve the purpose for which KelniGVG was engaged.

“The question is: why do we want to introduce another player into the telecom space all for purposes of monitoring, and all we say is that by the introduction of this new player, tax revenue has gone up whereas in actual fact that might not be the case,” the former minister emphasized.

To him, the National communications Authority (NCA) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) worked together with the already contracted companies, Subah Infosolutions and Afriwave Telecom, to do the monitoring of revenues in the telecommunications sector, adding that it would have been better to get same companies to work on the revenue monitoring.

“We are turning the whole telecommunications sector into a political playground. It is most likely that when there is a change in government, that whole ecosystem will be disrupted again, and that is not good for the telecom sector because it is a very sensitive sector,” he added

Meanwhile, the Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu Ekuful has, in a statement, explained that the government appointed KelniGVG in 2017 after it emerged that Subah and Afriwave failed to render the services for which they were contracted but still got paid.