The Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has disclosed that the controversial Kelni GvG contract has so far saved Ghana some 327.3 million cedis.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful made the revelation when she appeared before parliament to provide answers in relation to the work of Kelni GVG, a company that was awarded an $89m contract to independently monitor the revenue of telecommunication companies.
According to the minister, the company has been able make considerable gains in the area of fraud management.
“The Fraud Management component has from the inception to end of July 2020, made tax savings of over GHS 327.3 million”, she said
She said the platform is expected to save more money in the coming years.
“Over the life of the contract, the CP is expected to deliver tax savings of approximately GHS 799.6 million.”
The minister had failed for the third time to appear parliament on Wednesday, August 8, to answer questions filed by Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampam, Sam George on the contract.
Speaker of Parliament, Prof Mike Oquaye, was compelled to her a 48-hour ultimatum to come to the house and answer the questions.
She however showed up in the house on Friday, August 7 to address the questions.
Background
Kelni GVG was awarded a contract by the government for design, development and implementation of a common platform for traffic monitoring, revenue assurance, and mobile money monitoring and fraud management.
The biggest opposers of the deal was think-tank IMANI, which said the contract signed with the company did not make business sense and was not in the interest of the country.
President of IMANI Franklin Cudjoe said there was no point in appointing a company to provide revenue monitoring and assurance services when government cannot be assured of the amount of revenue it would get from the company.
The Minority also argued that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) could do the job without spending huge sums of money to contract a private firm to perform the task.
The Communications Minister justified the move by indicating that government needed to plug the loopholes used by telcos to underpay taxes and levies owed government.
The CSO’s subsequently demanded copies of the contract and proceeded to court to compel the Communications Minister to release the documents.
An Accra High Court subsequently ordered the Minister of Communications to release the monitoring contract, awarded to Kelni GVG Limited, to three plaintiffs who had filed a suit seeking to annul the contract.
The court ordered the Minister to hand over the contract to the three plaintiffs – John Ato Bonful, Nana Ama Adom-Boakye Kanyi and Citizen Ghana Movement on or before July 9, 2018.
By 3news.com|Ghana