…from printing the biometric passports

President Atta-Mills, for good reasons, owes it to himself and the people for Ghana to stop Buck Press Limited from going ahead to supply the eight million biometric passports that Ghana needs to bring its passport to conform to international standards.

While there are many reasons why the President must step in to stop abrogate this contract between the government and Buck Press Ltd, 'The Republic' has decided to state a few for the President's perusal.

Firstly, the contract did not go for tender. With the kind of amount involved and the importance attached to the supply of the biometric passport booklets, the law requires that the contract be put to tender for the best bidder to be awarded the contract. This due process was not followed.

In obtaining this contract, Buck Press fraudulently told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it was capable of supplying biometric passport booklets.

The company cited its contract with the Liberian government to supply biometric passport booklets as proof of its track record.

The truth, however, is that Buck Pres Ltd. had no experience in the printing of biometric passport booklets at the time it was given the contract by the government of Ghana to supply it with 1,500,000 biometric passport booklets.

While it was given the contract to supply the Liberian government with biometric passport in December 2005, the contract to supply the Government of Ghana with biometric passport booklets was awarded on in April 2005. It was therefore fraudulent for Buck Press Ltd to refer to its contract in Liberian as its track record when the Ghanaian contract was brokered before the Liberian one.

This misrepresentation is more than enough proof why the whole contract must be cancelled.

The second reason which is proof that the contract is fraudulent and not in the interest of the state is that while Buck Press Limited got the Liberian contract on Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis, which means the Liberian government has not spent a dollar on the passport booklets and is in fact making $4.55 on each passport booklet currently, the same Buck Press Limited has been paid £4,020,916.80 to produce same passport booklets here in Ghana.

The reason for this is simple; Officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Buck Press Limited connived to fraudulently make billions of Ghana cedis from the state.

Thirdly, the fact that five years after being awarded the contract, Buck Press Limited, a business entity, has not asked for any increment in money being paid to it is evidence that the contract sum of £7,499,000 was inflated and so five years on, inflation has still not eroded the huge and obscene profit on it.

According to sources, even now, the sum is far above what the government should have really paid for the 1,500,000 passport booklets.

President Mills, as a man with the tag 'Mr. Clean' ought not to allow this contract dent his image. Ghana needs biometric passports but not through a deal that stinks like the one between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Buck Press Ltd.

Stay tuned for more