The Fourth Estate has petitioned the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate the Ministry of Education and Lifted Logistics (formerly Busy Internet) for possible corruption and procurement breaches in the award of an GHS84 million contract to provide internet connectivity to educational institutions across the country.
The petition, submitted by Evans Aziamor-Mensah of The Fourth Estate on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, is on the back of his investigations which revealed that at the time the contract was awarded, Busy Internet owed the state GHS17 million in taxes and Social Security and National Insurance Trust being payments from December 2018 to 2022, making it ineligible to bid for or be awarded any government contract.
Busy Internet was awarded the contract on a sole-source basis, with an agreement to be paid GHS6.3 million by the government every month for internet services for five years.
The Ministry of Education paid Busy Internet GHS63.7 million between 2020 and 2022 and an additional GHS56 million between January and September 2023, for its services at a time when some of these schools had no internet service.
In May 2023, the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) approved an increment in the monthly recurrent expenditure from GHS6.3 million to GHS11.5 million. The PPA transferred the contract from Busy Internet to Lifted Logistics which was not a licensed Internet service provider then.
It has also since been revealed by Member of Parliament for Builsa South and ranking member of the Education Committee in Parliament, Dr Clement Apaak, that the contract was awarded without parliamentary approval.
“I filed series of questions to the Minister for Education seeking information regarding this policy… these questions were filed in 2021, and I am yet to get responses from the Minister or his representative.
“And the reason why I filed those questions was because as a member of the education committee, we had not seen a contract, we didn’t know the company that government had awarded the contract to, we didn’t know the terms and conditions of that contract, we didn’t know the processes by which the selected company or companies were awarded the contract,” he revealed on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM on Monday, June 10, 2024.
The OSP acknowledged the petition, stating: “Thank you for bringing this matter to the attention of the Office of the Special Prosecutor. We take such reports very seriously. Your complaint will be forwarded to the Special Prosecutor’s secretariat for the necessary action and response.”
Latest Stories
-
Message from the Morning Man: No Choice
3 mins -
Jospong Group and ISSER forge partnership to strengthen social and economic research in Ghana
3 mins -
Food service establishments to apply for advertisement approval from FDA
4 mins -
Tracey Grey releases new song ‘Dangerous’
8 mins -
McDan Group CEO unveils vision for African Logistics Transformation at CILT conference
14 mins -
CAF Awards 2024: No Kudus and Victor Boniface as full list of nominees revealed
22 mins -
AfESC partners with UESD for environmental research collaboration
28 mins -
James Gardener and I are good friends – Benedicta Gafah denies dating rumours
38 mins -
UN@79: Ghana calls for peaceful settlement to ongoing conflicts around the world
41 mins -
Volta Regional Health Director calls for enhanced sub-district healthcare at GPAA’s 21st Annual Conference
46 mins -
Deputy Tano North Chief Imam urges stakeholders to cooperate with EC for successful Election 2024
51 mins -
Independent presidential candidate proposes new economic development model for Ghana
54 mins -
Greater Accra House of Chiefs elects Nungua Mantse as new President
58 mins -
Bank of Ghana hosts high-level Fintech networking event in Washington DC
1 hour -
Cholera outbreak claims two lives in Ada
1 hour