By
William Yaw Owusu
Thursday,
September 07, 2017
Information available to DAILY GUIDE indicates
that the Electoral Commission (EC) paid huge sums of money to telecommunication
service providers for the transmission of the 2016 election results.
The commission is said to have spent a whopping
GH¢11,952,894.50 on the Election Results Management System (ERMS) alone.
An EC Audit Observation Memorandum indicated that
four major mobile telephony service providers pocketed a total of
GH¢6,591,402.53 for just faxing the results from the 10 regional offices under
the virtual private network platform.
E-Transmission
Under the ERMS, networks like Airtel, Vodafon, MTN
and Tigo took away GH¢2,534,877.54, GH¢1,104,245.61, GH¢202,282.64 and
GH¢2,749,996.74 respectively for faxing the results.
The EC had reportedly wanted to carry out electronic
transmission of the results from all the 29,000 polling stations akin to the
process in Kenya at an estimated cost of between $32 million and $35 million,
despite vehement protests by the opposition parties at the time.
The EC only jettisoned the project when it realized
that its electronic transmission system had allegedly been compromised and had
to resort to the traditional transmission, which is faxing.
Opposition
Fears
The then opposition parties, particularly the New
Patriotic Party (NPP) - which eventually won the elections - had warned that
the electronic transmission of the results was susceptible to manipulation
(similar to what is currently transpiring in Kenya where that country’s Supreme
Court has declared the presidential results null and void after the opposition
had been able to prove that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission
(IEBC) recorded some irregularities.
Apart from the telcos, other private firms such as
Perfect Business Systems, which is currently under investigations over its
alleged role in the troubled biometric project dubbed, ‘Operation Business
Suite' (OBS) at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT),
benefited from the ERMS project.
Perfect Business Systems had three contracts to
supply laptops, computers and monitors and laptop bags at a total cost of GH¢
4,107,717.95, which are broken down to GH¢1,094,500.00, GH¢2,704,500.00 and
GH¢308,717.95 respectively.
Other companies that were given ERMS contracts were
Brown Kasaro, which had a total of GH¢242,646.45 for customization of ERMS
while Dunia Ramazani received GH¢82,797.13 and GH¢70,465.34 respectively for
consultancy fees for ERMS.
IT Markets Limited received four different payments
of GH¢88,390.10, GH¢234,305.00, GH¢188,670.00 and GH¢346,500.00 for the supply
of ERMS software, Network Switches and Cables for ERMS, hardware for ERMS and
HDMI Video Switches.
Raging
Issues
Currently, the EC Chairperson, Charlotte Osei and
her two deputies - Amadu Sulley in-charge of Operations and Georgina
Opoku-Amankwa, in-charge of Corporate Services – are facing impeachment
proceedings over alleged corruption and abuse of office, following petitions
and a counter petition against them.
A litany of
allegations have been leveled against Mrs Osei, including spending GH¢3.9
million to partition an office, receipt of a Toyota Land Cruiser from the
erstwhile Mahama’s NDC government, spending about $14 million when the Public
Procurement Authority (PPA) had authorized her to use only $7.5 million, as
well as attending Cabinet meetings during the tenure of President John Dramani
Mahama, among other issues.
Mrs. Osei is facing two petitions first filed by
unnamed staff of the commission, who are being led by Lawyer Maxwell
Opoku-Agyemang and later another petition from a lawyer called Douglas Seidu.
In the initial petition, Mrs. Charlotte Osei had
been accused by the unnamed staff of “engaging in cronyism by awarding
contracts to the tune of 14,310,961 United States Dollars to her cronies for
the construction of Pre-fabricated District offices without recourse to the
Commission.”
The second was filed
by Mr Douglass Seidu, who is claiming that Mrs Osei was in breach of public
procurement practices and provisions of the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act
663), as well as gross financial mismanagement.
He accused the EC
boss of awarding contracts amounting to GH¢249,081,895.03 and $71,406,388.80
respectively without following the required procurement processes and laws.
CJ
Directive
The deadline (September 5, 2017) given by the Chief
Justice to the EC officials to file their respective official responses
regarding the allegations of corruption and abuse of office has elapsed and it
is unclear if the defendants were able to do so.
Fights Back
Mrs Charlotte Osei,
through her lawyers - Sory@Law - who are also the commission’s external
solicitors, hit back at her accusers, insisting that she had not been corrupt
or abused her office and rather accused her two deputies of deliberately
scheming to frustrate her stay in office.
The chairperson, in
her initial response, openly accused Ms. Opoku-Amankwaa of signing contracts
worth over $40 million without her knowledge and authorization between May and
September 2015.
She has also sued
Lawyer Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang for defamation.
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