Nana Ohene Ntow, a former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), now Senior Advisor to independent presidential candidate Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, has expressed resentment about the NPP’s defence of the controversial revenue assurance contract between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML).
He noted that it is worrying for individuals like the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, to defend the GRA-SML deal.
Ohene Ntow emphasised that the deal did not meet any of the conditions for sole sourcing, however, SML, describing it as a “nascent company,” was selected for the deal.
Majority Leader Afenyo-Markin responded to calls for the full publication of the KPMG’s report on the GRA-SML deal.
Addressing a press conference in Accra on Friday, May 3, the Effutu legislator categorically stated that it is not “within the right of anyone to demand copies of the report.”
Furthermore, he indicated the NPP Majority was “clear in our minds” that the report from KPMG is an advisory to the President.
“There is no doubt on our minds that the document is for advisory purposes, it is an opinion which opinion is guiding Mr President in decision making.
“So it is not within the right of anybody to demand much as it is written in law that public documents, for the sake of transparency and good governance, be released to the public and members of the public have the right to receive it, it is also a written bonafide of the president,” said Afenyo-Markin.
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Afenyo-Markin also said that the call by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to prosecute persons involved in the award of the contract is baseless.
But speaking on TV3’s The Key Points programme on Saturday, Nana Ohene Ntow said the SML deal in its current form is similar to the ECG and PDS deal.
“This issue becomes of big concern, especially with PDS in mind…PDS was not going to generate electricity, PDS was not going to provide any transmission facilities, just revenue collection. And the arrangement under which PDS contract was done is quite similar to this one [GRA-SML deal]. And those are the things that will raise concerns of nationally-minded citizens.”
“All the illegalities have been established beyond doubt, that this is a contract that you couldn’t have said should go for sole-sourcing. And all the explanations and the conditions under which sole-sourcing can be done…none of these were met and yet you go for sole-sourcing.
“This company is a nascent company, a company that was just born without any experience, no parliamentary and people in government, including the Majority Leader, Afenyo-Markin, are defending this matter. I mean, it’s very worrying,” he noted.
