Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has challenged Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, to provide details of the said US$48million contract awarded without Public Procurement Authority (PPA) approval.

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Mr Ablakwa in a Facebook post on July 6, 2023, claimed that "the contract was dubiously awarded to the same Nigerian cabal which has hijacked the Communications & Digitalization sector.”He made this claim while citing a PPA's response to his request made under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

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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

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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.

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”But Mrs Ursusla Owusu-Ekuful insists the claims levelled against her by Mr Ablakwa are false and has 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.

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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.

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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.

The Independent Ghana | Andy Ogbarmey-Tettey

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