CHRAJ Boss Not The Only Prey...There're Equally Bigger Fishes Out There - IMANI CEO

Franklin Cudjoe, Founding President and CEO of Policy Think Tank, IMANI Ghana, appears unimpressed with government's backing of any form of investigations into the alleged misappropriation of funds by Lauretta Lamptey, Commissioner for the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). He rather prefers government revisits the scandal involving Subah Infosolution and ensure the organization involved pay its dues to the State. To Franklin Cudjoe, Government should ensure Subah Infosolution and all other entities indicted in other corruption-related issues refund the sums of monies they received from the State. The IMANI boss was speaking to the news that government, through the Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah, has indicated its resolve to abide by any decision or recommendation that will come from the Auditor-General�s investigation into alleged misappropriation on the part of CHRAJ�s boss. Subah Infosolution, a relatively unknown company, was engaged by the Ghana Revenue Authority in 2010 to provide telecom traffic monitoring services for revenue verification for the tax agency, specifically collect �Talk Tax�, which the GRA was collecting on behalf of the government. It was primarily set up to take up the telecom monitoring contract and the money that came with it. They were to find out whether the correct amount was being paid by the telecom companies namely; Tigo, Vodafone, MTN, Glo, Expresso and Airtel. Earlier reports indicated that the said deal earned the Information Technology firm GH�74.3 million Ghana Cedis. Later, several individuals and institutions raised eyebrows on the deal and called for investigations. Also, a ranking Member of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei requested the Minister of Finance, Mr. Seth Terkper to furnish the house with further and better particulars detailing the business agreement between an IT firm, Subah Info solutions Limited and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to enable it have a better understanding of the contract. The controversial agreement between the two entities, according to the committee was not known to Parliament, hence its request for the details. A government committee was set up to investigate the alleged payment of GHC144 million to Subah Info Solutions Ghana Limited by the GRA for no work done. At the end of the investigations, the committee�s report implied that the contract was legally awarded and that Subah Info Solutions Limited deserved the monies paid to them. The report also said Subah justifiably incurred cost in executing the contract for which reason it was paid 74.3 million cedis contrary to the reported 144 million cedis for services rendered. However, the report admitted that Subah failed to fully execute its contract but blamed this on the unwillingness of Telecom companies to allow Subah to attach equipment that will independently monitor revenue declared.