SOFTtribe saga: We’re not anti-Ghanaian business – GWCL

The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has said it is not anti-Ghanaian business following a tussle with local software developer SOFTtribe.

The Managing Director of GWCL, Dr Clifford Braimah, told journalists on Thursday, 28 November 2019 at a press conference in Accra that: “Nobody can say that Ghana Water Company is anti-Ghanaian business”.

According to him, after “an admonishing by the President [that]: ‘this is a Ghanaian company that we can help, work together [and] whatever challenges there are, we should be able to resolve them’”, they have ensured a positive working relationship with the software developer.

Dr Braimah further revealed that when he and the new GWCL Board took office, they decided to “extend the termination period in the contract [with SOFTribe]; it was three months but for the love of developing a Ghanaian company, we brought it to six months”.

Dr Braimah was responding to a barrage of accusations levelled at GWCL after armed officials raided the offices of SOFTribe and seized electronic gadgets of the firm and its staff.

The reason for the confiscation of the items, according to officials, was to secure the billing software of GWCL, which, allegedly had been held to ransom by the IT firm after GWCL served notice that it intended ending a contractual agreement signed with the firm since 2016.

Former President John Dramani Mahama is one of the individuals who has been vocal about the incident, describing the “reckless” invasion of the company, founded by Mr Herman Kojo Chinery-Hesse, a celebrated African technologist, as “unacceptable”.