[ 2016-02-11 ]

IMANI insists Afriwave deal is fraudulent despite NCA’s denial
Policy Think Tank, IMANI Ghana, says it has in its
possession a leaked document highlighting some
“fraudulent” practices that facilitated the
contract awarded to Afriwave Telecom Ghana, to
provide a common platform for the routing,
switching, billing and settlement of interconnect
traffic for the telecommunication industry.

The document according to IMANI, has confirmed its
allegations that some persons at the National
Communications Authority (NCA), manipulated the
process leading to the award of the contract to
Afriwave.

IMANI’s latest revelation comes barely 24-hours
after the NCA released a statement in which it
explained the role it played in the award of the
contract and described IMANI’s claims as
misleading.

IMANI has already questioned the contract awarded
to Afriwave to provide a common platform for the
routing, switching, billing and settlement of
interconnect traffic for the telecommunication
industry.

Their concerns followed similar claims raised by
Member of Parliament for Obuasi West, Kweku
Kwarteng.

In IMANI’s new press release, the Think Tank
said it has now adopted a stronger stance because
it is privy to ample documentary evidence of
fraudulent manipulations of the tender results.

They outlined the factors that led to the supposed
fraudulent outcome saying the 21-day time-frame
used to review detailed technical and financial
submissions from 5 companies competing to manage
the interconnect clearing house (ICH) system was
“farcical”.

They also claimed that the evaluation panel even
admitted in its report that no pre-qualification
was done and that the panel also had no prior
guidance and assistance from the NCA’s technical
staff.

“The most telling point for IMANI is the fact
that the panel manipulated its own scoring scheme
to ensure that Afriwave came on top, regardless of
the actual results.”

“Afriwave was awarded 5 marks in a section where
the total available marks were ‘1’. This is
the part where the applicants were to show that
their ‘operational support team’ for the
planned undertaking is up to scratch by presenting
their CVs,” their release stated.

In light of these developments, IMANI say they are
resurrecting their campaign against the current
ICH policy, reiterating their demands to have the
telecom industry freely choose a clearing house
and to have the Ministry of Communications re-open
the tender and provide adequate time for best
practices to be followed.

They are also urging President John Mahama and the
Ministry of Communications to act quickly on the
new information in order redeem the credibility of
the whole process.

Source - Imani

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