IMANI “motivated” to campaign against KelniGVG contract- Andah

The Deputy Communications Minister, George Andah says policy think tank IMANI may have been “motivated” to campaign against the controversial Kelni GVG contract.

The group claim Kelni GVG is not fit to provide the services for which they have been contracted.

Kelni GVG, a Haitian company, was awarded a contract by the government for design, development and implementation of a common platform for traffic monitoring, revenue assurance, and mobile money monitoring and fraud management, a service already being rendered by Afriwave and Subah Info Solution according to IMANI.

IMANI has however questioned the rationale behind the new contract with Kelni GVG, describing it as wasteful and aimed at milking the public purse.

According to the policy think tank group, reasons espoused by government officials to back the deal lack financial sense except that it was premised on political thinking.

But speaking on Accra based Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile on Saturday, Mr Andah said the argument of IMANI was due to misinformation.

He said the government followed due process of law in contracting the company to provide four services, including revenue monitoring assurance, fraud and monitoring of mobile money operations.

Background

In 2009, the Electronic Communication Act 2009 was passed, part of which instituted a 19 cent per minute charge on international calls.

The law also imposed on government a responsibility to monitor the call traffic as well as ensure a “real-time” revenue monitoring system of the telcos.

On the basis of the law, the erstwhile National Democratic Congress government contracted Subah to provide revenue assurance services and traffic monitoring.

However, Andah said Subah failed to provide real-time monitoring services which would have given government up to the minute information on the traffic and revenues of the telcos.

Rather it was relying on Call Data Records (CDRs) which is provided by the Telcos to the NCA and which could easily be manipulated by the telcos.