By William
Yaw Owusu
Tuesday July
03, 2018
The committee set up to investigate the
former Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, has made mind-blowing
findings about how the sacked EC boss brazenly cancelled contracts and re-awarded
them without following basic procurement rules.
There were 12 components involved in the
said contract worth around $22 million that she unilaterally awarded to the
SuperTech Ltd after she had abrogated an initial contract with the same private
company signed by her deputy in-charge of Corporate Services, Georgina
Opoku-Amankwah, who has also been sacked.
The STL contracts form part of six
allegations investigated by the Chief Justice’s committee presided over by a
Supreme Court judge, Justice A.A. Benin, for which Charlotte Osei has been
found to have breached procurement rules and has since paid the penalty for it.
Abrogated
Contract
It turned out the contracts dully
procured under the signature of Mrs. Opoku-Amankwaa with STL Ghana that compelled
Mrs. Osei to abrogate unilaterally were worth a total of $41 million in two
components and they had been signed before the then EC boss assumed office.
However, in re-awarding the contract at
the total cost of $22,340,814 to the same private firm, the committee had found
that the sacked EC boss did not follow laid-down procurement rules and declared
it illegal.
The committee held “it to be very absurd
coming from the Chairperson, the very person who led the crusade to abrogate
the initial STL contracts, citing breaches of the Public Procurement Act.”
The committee found that upon her
appointment in June 2015, Mrs. Charlotte Osei detected some irregularities with
the STL contract, which was yet to be performed and was right to have abrogated
it.
Unilateral
Action
However, the committee also found that
her decision to unilaterally award fresh contracts to the same STL in the
aggregate sum of $22,340,814 was illegal, explaining that she had failed to
comply with the internal procurement procedures of the EC created by the
commission itself, namely the Entity Tender Review Panel and the Public
Procurement Act.
In all, she awarded 12 contracts to STL
for the supplies of ICT equipment and services and the committee found that
only one out of the 12 did not exceed her procurement threshold as chairperson.
According to the committee, the only
component of the contract that did not exceed the procurement threshold was GH¢50,000
for goods and services before July 2016.
It further said that all the letters
awarding the 12 contracts to STL were signed by the Chairperson herself between
February 8, 2016 and November 25,2016.
Tender
Panel
The Entity Tender Review Panel consists
of the chairperson and her two deputies but the decisions to award the
contracts to STL were taken without the inputs of the two and subsequently
found the STL contracts awarded by the chairperson as “unlawful, violating
Sections 16 and 40 of the Public Procurement Act (Act 914).”
“The chairperson showed sheer
incompetence in the manner she handled or conducted the award of new STL
contracts, in view of her experience with the initial STL contracts, which were
abrogated at her instance,” the committee revealed.
EC
Lawyers
The committee also found that the sacked
EC boss had engaged the services of a private law firm Sorry@Law headed by
Thaddeus Sory, without recourse to the commission and without any procurement
process, and as a result, the commission was being made to pay hefty amounts as
services rendered.
According to the committee, although
there were no formal contractual arrangements between the EC and the law firm
and the basis for computing legal fees, unknown, involving fees of GH¢400,000
came up.
The committee had found that there was
no documentary evidence of engagement of the Commission of the services of
Sory@Law and also held further that the appointment of Sory@Law was in breach
of the Public Procurement Act.
The committee said that she appointed
the lawyers through sole sourcing without the approval of the Public
Procurement Authority and that the EC boss ‘misbehaved’ with the appointment of
Messrs Sory@Law, adding, “The events surrounding the engagement of Messrs Sory@Law
as lawyers for the Electoral Commission shows incompetence, ineptitude and dereliction
of duty on the part of Mrs. Charlotte Osei and we so find.”
Interestingly, the committee had
recommended that though the EC had ceased using the services of Messrs Sory@Law
as solicitors, the firm should be paid for its legal services rendered.
EC
Website
The contract for the design of the EC’s
website was also held to be illegal since she awarded the contract without
recourse to the rules of procurement.
It involved the use of donor support of
$76,000 by the USAID grant for the EC’s ICT environment.
The EC boss was also found to have used
the donor funds awarded to repackage the strategic plan of the commission,
funded by the UNDP and to develop a new logo for the commission and it was in
breach of the procurement law.
Prima
Facie Case
In establishing a prima facie case that warranted
the setting up of the five-member committee, the report recommending the
sacking of the three EC bosses quoted the Chief Justice as saying that “the
Public Procurement Act is an enactment which, one may say, is made in pursuance
of the principles of probity and accountability expressed in article 37(1) of
the Constitution. It envisages that in the procurement of goods and services
with public resources, there must be standard practices which are aimed at
fairness and value for money so as to strengthen the national economy. It is
for this reason, in my view, that the Act is so detailed and specific in the
process and procedures it prescribes.”
The committee affirmed that “in all the
procurement activities which we had to investigate, the findings have been that
Mrs. Charlotte Osei failed to comply with the Public Procurement Act.”
Defence
Dismissal
The committee dismissed the defence of
Charlotte Osei that issues of procurement was not part of her core functions
since she was the same officer writing directly to seek approval from the PPA
to do restricted tendering and also wrote as chairperson directly to companies
notifying them of contract awards.
“If procurement of goods and services
was not part of the core business of the Electoral Commission as argued by Mrs.
Charlotte Osei, why did she take over the above roles directly when there was a
Procurement Unit with a head in the Electoral Commission?”
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