The ordinary Ghanaian would have to cough out an amount of $92.97Million (about 504 Million Cedis) that would be paid to Nick Danso’s Ghana Link and its Korean partners owning UNIPASS if the company is allowed to start operating Ghana’s National Single Window platform and asked to stop in the first year because any anomaly whatsoever has been detected, so says the termination clause in the contract Ghana Link signed with the Trade Ministry of behalf of Ghana.

Despite this termination clause, caution has been thrown to the wind in ensuring that BEFORE Ghana Link and UNIPASS are allowed to start work, all uncertainties would have been cleared.

Rather, Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Marfo has instructed importers to start working with UNIPASS at a time the company has demonstrated significant technological challenges that could affect its work and completely disrupt the trade facilitation structure and disrupt revenue generation.

The risk is that in the absence of clearing all the uncertainties and doing the necessary re-assurance checks, the company could be asked to stop work when it starts operation and then the owners walk to the bank to cash their $92.97Million agreed upon in the termination clause.

Per the ten year sole-sourced contract that was initially signed on the blind side of Cabinet and Parliament, termination of the UNI-PASS contract by the government either voluntarily or through material breaches occasioned by it, attracts graduated fees of between US$93 million in the first year to US$12m in the tenth year.

Already, renowned economists and civil society groups have raised red flags over the figures in the termination clause of the UNIPASS contract as they argue that given that the UNIPASS/Ghana Link Network Services single window contract was awarded for US$40 million for ten years, these termination clauses only benefits the contractor.

The groups have called for the need for further scrutiny of other relevant documents on how those figures were arrived at especially when Ghana Link/UNIPASS has constantly failed to live up to expectation as far as a demonstration of its supposed superior system is concerned.

There was a time, the Economic Management Team (EMT) had to step in and order Ghana Link/ UNIPASS to go and do the right thing.

The entire Ghana Link/UNIPASS contract with the government of Ghana and the indecent haste with which some persons along the corridors of power are using sheer political bravado to ensure the company starts work despite the major and significant uncertainties has made the country a laughing stock to trade facilitation partners across the world who are monitoring the development.

No System

Another major issue of concern that has been raised is the fact that though the Ghana Link/UNIPASS system, according to Deputy Ministers Kweku Kwarteng and Carlos Ahenkorah is better than the ones being used by West Blue and GCNet, how come the UNIPASS contract says it can only start work when the systems of West Blue and GCNet have been taken from them and handed over to UNIPASS.

A copy of the Trade Facilitation Agreement between the Ministry of Trade and Nick Danso’s Ghana Link, sighted by THE NEW PUBLISHER, has the following written in black and white as a condition precedent:

“The Parties obligation under this Agreement shall come into effect only when all of the following conditions have been met.

“The Government has handed over the GCNET and any other third party operations including the country’s single window trade operations and other support services relating to the processing of customs documents at the Ports to the Contractor.

“The Contractor has commenced operating the system handed to it by the Government including the country’s Single Window trade operations and other support services relating to the processing of customs documentation at the Ports.

“Commencement and completion of all the necessary transitional and interim processes that the Government and Government Regulatory Authorities need to undertake in order to be ready to take over by the Contractor.

“The Contractor shall provide for the acceptance of Government a bona fide proposal on the detailed agreements including defined substance, timing and assessment criteria of the Services, including technical requirement, development plan, implementation plan and roll-out plan with timelines of the completion of the customized UNIPASS.

“As soon as the Contractor implements the System, the Government shall take all necessary steps to pay for all services rendered.”

– MORE SOON-