General News of Thursday, 31 May 2018

Source: kasapafmonline.com

KelniGVG saga: Noisemakers fighting back because we’ve blown their cover – Ursula

Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Communications Minister play videoUrsula Owusu-Ekuful, Communications Minister

The Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu Ekuful has rejected accusations of any wrongdoing in the award of the Revenue Assurance Monitoring contract to KelniGVG.

Addressing parliament on the deal on Thursday, May 31, 2018, the Minister indicated that the $178 million deal with Kelni GVG signed by the National Communications Authority (NCA) is the best deal the country could get for the kind of service being provided.

She further pointed out that all the equipment to be used in the execution of the contract would be owned by the country after a period of five years.

The KelniGVG contract has been questioned by some critics who say the deal seems to have been tainted with some underhand dealing.

President of Imani Franklin Cudjoe has been one of the leading voices in the KelniGVG contract, who has constantly condemned the revenue assurance deal which is meant to monitor revenue in the telcos industry.

Although the government insists the deal saves the country $1.1 million a month, Mr Cudjoe wonders why the state has been paying the firm $1.5 million per month since January for “no work done”.

For him, the deal is “needless” and a rip-off which ought to be terminated.

Delivering a statement in parliament in response to her summon by the Speaker of parliament, Madam Ursula Owusu said the seeming noise over the contract is supposed to be coming from entities and their assigns benefiting hugely on the blind side of government.

“Mr. Speaker those who were earning large sums of money for virtually no work done will be unhappy with the collapse of their lucrative business and will fight back…It’s not in the interest of the Telecoms multinationals and local business concerns for government to have this full visibility of their transactions” she told parliament.



Meanwhile, President of Policy Think tank, IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe has disclosed officials of the government have clandestinely engaged him for fruitful talks over controversial KelniGVG contract.

This according to him, explains for the reason why he’s decided to tame his voice on the saga and also restrain himself from further response on the deal.

“How I wished people will stop asking me to respond to the Finance Minister’s uninformed comment about the ‘noise ‘ over GVG. I will only say this. It is important to know that those who still think they are fighting IMANI on behalf of party or personalities involved in this saga, should know that their superiors have started consulting,” he wrote on his Facebook page Thursday.