Education Ministry, TANIT Ltd clash over IT contract… Ministry demands refund

The Ministry of Education has asked the information technology company (IT), TANIT Limited to refund GH¢859, 115.46 it received for a contract to provide digital teacher training content and platform in 2021 but did not deliver.

The Ministry requested the IT company to refund all payments made to it after it failed to meet the tenets of the contract signed between the two parties on July 26, 2021, a letter dated June 22, 2022 has revealed, reports the Ghanaian Times.

In a second letter dated July 18, 2022, the Ministry said it reminded the company to refund all payments as they did not perform their obligation under the contract agreement which was supposed to be completed within five months.

Here are the five deliverables spelt out in the contract by the Ministry to TANIT Ltd.

Under the terms of the contract TANIT Limited was to deliver on the first deliverable of the contract by August 2021 attracting payment of 15 per cent of the contract sum of GH¢4,940,827.72 which was met by TANIT Ltd.

Design, construct and build a platform for the training of teachers online by September 2021 attracting payment of 25 per cent, develop and build curriculum design by October 2021 also attracting 20 per cent payment, operationalise a dashboard, platform sign off and go live by November 2021 which also attracted payment of 20 per cent and a consultant to be required to stay on board for additional two months (December 2021 to January 2022) after the project went live for quality assurance which attracted the remaining 20 per cent.

According to the Ministry, it received a letter from TANIT on February 14, 2022 requesting the remaining payment of 85 per cent of the contract sum amounting to GH¢4,940,827.72 as per the deliverable schedule in the contract.

The Education Ministry on the other hand, said it was expecting TANIT Ltd to have performed each of the five deliverables and submit a claim respectively for work done at each stage as spelt out in the contract and report for verification before moving to the next stage.

“The bone of contention is the fact that TANIT Ltd did not submit monthly reports for the remaining four deliverables but rather lumped the four reports together and requested the payment of the remaining 85 per cent contract sum.”

When contacted, the TANIK Limited Head of Public Relations, Mr Kwadwo Agyemang, denied that his company needed to refund any moneys whatsoever to the Ministry of Education, the Ghanaian Times report added.

He also disputed the figure of GH¢859, 115.46 as the money to refund saying the amount the company received as payment for the first deliverable was GH¢751,626.97.

Mr Agyemang said the Ministry of Education or the government was rather indebted to TANIT Limited in the sum GH¢4, 975,809.48 constituting 85 per cent of the total contract sum of GH¢ 5,727.436.45 being contract awarded and approved by the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).

The TANIT Head of Public Relations said his company executed the first deliverable as contained in the Terms of Agreement but instead of the ministry paying us on the agreed schedule after we have written to them, they delayed for two months until October 2021, when the payment was made to us after a lot of running up and down with the Ministry.

“We were supposed to have delivered on the contract schedule in January 2022, but due to the delay in payment of the initial 15 per cent, it affected the project delivery period which we had to finally deliver on February 14, 2022 delaying by two weeks which was not our making,” he said.

Mr Agyemang said the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, had instructed Mr Bernard Ayensu, then in charge of the Ghana Accountability Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP) project to hold a meeting with TANIT during which Mr Ayensu had informed us that the Minister had given the other component of the project to another entity on our blind side.”

Asked about their next line of action to resolve the impasse between TANIT and the Ministry of Education, Mr Agyemeng said “our lawyers were looking at options of going to court or an arbitration.

source: Ghanaian Times