Barely 5 hours after being dared to provide evidence to back his claim that Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, awarded a US$48million contract without Public Procurement Authority (PPA) approval, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has released his first evidence.

The North Tongu MP, Mr Ablakwa, after announcing his acceptance of the Communications Minister's challenge on the US$48million scandal, has in a Facebook post provided a letter from Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) corroborating his claim.

Ablakwa, please produce the contract you claim I signed without PPA approval. This is the only RTP contract I have signed, approved by Parliament pic.twitter.com/KS1cfFxafz— Ursula Owusu (@UrsulaOw) July 7, 2023

Per the letter dated December 15, 2021, titled "Proof of existing contract between Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications and Ascend Digital Solutions Limited", there is an existing contract with Ascend Digital Solutions, a Nigerian company Mr Ablakwa claims has hijacked the Communications & Digitalization sector.

Acting Administrator of GIFEC, Prince Ofosu Sefah, who is a signature to the said letter confirmed that the Nigerian company is currently executing on behalf of GIFEC a contract for Engineering Design, Build, Rollout and Telephony Project involving Cell Sites in the 2016 communities.

"Ascend Digital Solutions Limited has been delivering these services to us since February 2020," the letter revealed, adding that "the duration of the Build and Rollout Contract is until August 2023, while the Managed Services Contract is renewable, after an initial agreement for two years."

Background

Mr Ablakwa in a Facebook post on July 6, 2023, accused Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful of awarding a US$48million contract awarded without Public Procurement Authority (PPA) approval.

He made this claim while citing a PPA’s response to his request made under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The request dated 8th June was titled “REQUEST FOR INFORMATION,” and read in part: “Respectfully, can you confirm if the Public Procurement Authority has granted procurement approval as required per the Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663) as amended with (Act 914) to Ascend Digital Solutions under a US$48 million Rural Telephony Project contract purportedly for Engineering, Design, Build, Rollout and Managed Services which is being executed by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization since the year 2020.”

The PPA in its response dated 30th June, 2023 and signed by Deputy Chief Executive Kwame Prempeh per the letter shared by the North Tongu MP read: “We wish to inform you that our records do not reflect any information of the above-mentioned project.”

But Mrs Ursusla Owusu-Ekuful insisted the claims levelled against her by Mr Ablakwa are false and asked him to “please produce the contract you claim I signed without PPA approval.”

Ablakwa, please produce the contract you claim I signed without PPA approval. This is the only RTP contract I have signed, approved by Parliament pic.twitter.com/KS1cfFxafz— Ursula Owusu (@UrsulaOw) July 7, 2023

According to Mr Ursula Owusu-Ekuful in a Twitter post on July 7, 2023, the only RTP contract signed is a commercial contract agreement between the government of Ghana, Huawei Technologies and China National Technical Import and Export Corporation.

An amount of €155,000,000 was requested by the Communications Minister to be used to execute the implementation of the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project.

Source: The Independent Ghana | Andy Ogbarmey-Tettey