Frontiers earned over $87m while government got under $7m from COVID testing at KIA – Report

Frontiers Healthcare Services Limited, the company contracted by the government of Ghana to conduct COVID-19 testing at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), is reported to have made over $80 million more than the government.

According to a report by JoyNews, data from the Ghana Airports Company, in response to a Right to Information request it filed, showed that Frontiers Healthcare Services got $87.5 million from its testing services at the airport ($84 million from arrival testing and $3.5 million from departure testing).

The government of Ghana, on the other hand, got $6 million from arrival testing and $180,000 from departure testing during the same period.

The report indicated that the data from the Airport Company shows that Frontiers claimed over 90% of the earnings from COVID-19 testing—92% of income from arrival testing and 94% of income from departure testing.

The Government of Ghana got less than 10% of the total revenue from the testing—7% from arrival testing and 6% from departure testing.

Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has filed a motion for an impartial audit of the testing agreement between Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) and Frontiers due to the huge disparity in earnings.

The MP recently released supposed details of the contract between the government and Frontiers Healthcare Services Ltd. to conduct COVID-19 testing at the Kotoka International Airport in 2020.

The contract records had been demanded several times through the Right to Information Act but were not made available.

According to Ablakwa, his sources have been able to find the documents.

Details have revealed that the contract was awarded to Frontiers on August 31, 2020, and work began on September 1, 2020.

The North Tongu MP, who calls himself the SOA Oversight, said the awarding of the contract neglected the public procurement laws in a way that showed that the government wanted to “loot and share” in the scheme.

Below are the details provided by Ablakwa:

1. Frontiers was handpicked in an opaque sweetheart deal after a hush-hush discussion;

2. Ghana's procurement laws were blatantly and violently flouted. In fact, Ghana’s procurement laws were suspended.

3. This was not a competitive exercise as credible institutions such as Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research, Korle Bu Central Laboratory and others who were at the forefront of the COVID containment were sidelined as government opted for the overnight incorporated dubious Frontiers;

4. This letter incredibly reveals how an offer was made to Frontiers on 31st August, 2020 and how actual testing magically commenced the next day, September 1, 2020. Something to soon feature in Guinness World Records;

5. In a total rip off, the government per the offer letter asked for a fixed share of a measly and wickedly unpatriotic $10 per test as Frontiers keeps $140 per test considering that Frontiers was charging each passenger $150;

6. Shockingly, Frontiers was asked according to the offer letter to make a paltry and insulting payment of only $97,109.00 as proof of acceptance of the offer for an exclusive control of the Upper Arrival, Terminal 3, KIA — regardless of the fact that Frontiers stood to make and has indeed made profits worth hundreds of millions of dollars;

7. Despite this outrageous giveaway, Frontiers was exempted from paying water bills;

8. The offer letter did not provide technical specifications, standards and the specific amount of investment Frontiers was obliged to make in setting up the testing facility which actually exposes how everything was skewed by government officials to collude with Frontiers in raping Ghanaians;

9. The offer letter made no reference to mandatory authorization from the Health Facilities Regulatory Authority (HeFRA) as a condition precedent which explains why Frontiers commenced work many months before it applied to HeFRA for licensing after my original exposé;

10. From the intercepted offer letter, Frontiers was granted an unfathomable long duration of 2 years to loot, create and share; and that was regardless of whether Covid is defeated in a few weeks or not. This also explains why Ghana was basically the only country still testing at the airport many months after airport authorities in many other jurisdictions had stopped and dismantled their testing systems;

11. The evidence is overwhelming that this Frontiers deal was a grand operation between a buccaneer government and lootocratic entrepreneurs to make a fortune at a time many were being killed and hospitalized by a devastating pandemic.

BAI/AW

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