IMANI Center for Policy and Education, Africa has criticized Ursula Owusu-Ekuful-led Ministry of Communication for rushing the $178 million Kelni-GVG contract without proper due diligence.
IMANI highlighted the lack of financial review and the hurried approval process, calling it a clear attempt to bypass scrutiny.
The policy think-tank also pointed out the CRTC’s failure to address legal concerns raised by Subah, pushing the deal through with emergency sittings.
“On 16th January 2018, …the Attorney General was compelled to write to Kofi Nti, Commissioner General of the GRA, regarding a petition received from Mercer & Company on behalf of Subah in respect of a purported termination of its contract and award of the same contract to a foreign company.
“This letter was ignored even though the Attorney General had clearly advised that the letter of termination sent on 25th April 2017 and meant to take effect on 5th May 2017, did not satisfy the 3-month notice indicated in the contract and that the 11-day notice was clearly in breach of the contract”.
IMANI Center for Policy and Education, Africa
IMANI further highlighted that despite clear warnings from the Attorney General about financial liability if Subah pursued legal action, the Ministry of Communication and the CRTC ignored this concern and pushed the process through.
It also criticized the restricted tender for the project, noting that none of the four invited companies had relevant experience in telecom revenue monitoring.
IMANI pointed out that the NCA relaxed crucial requirements in the tender guidelines and failed to ensure the companies met financial criteria, further undermining the process.
It also revealed that the background research behind the selection of the four companies for the tender was flawed, citing the case of Aeon Logistics.
The company’s supposed technical partner, SGS, disclaimed any association and refused to participate.
IMANI argued that tender evaluation should focus on the companies themselves, not their alleged partners or subcontractors, and criticized the use of such claims to enhance the credibility of weak bidders, which violates public procurement norms.
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IMANI Africa Highlights Irregularities in Kelni-GVG Tender Process
Furthermore, IMANI Africa revealed that its ongoing analysis of the Kelni-GVG deal, focuses on the questionable selection of Aeon Logistics for the $179 million telecom monitoring project.
Founded in 2014 with minimal capital and no full-time employees, Aeon was sold to a fresh law graduate just days before the tender.
IMANI pointed out that despite its lack of qualifications, Aeon was one of only four companies invited to bid for such a significant project, questioning the rationale behind selecting such an underqualified company.
“3D TV Properties [another company that participated in the tender] was incorporated in 1995 and is authorized to trade in the construction, general merchandise, telecoms, and broadcasting sectors. It has never acquired any licenses in the telecom and broadcasting industries, a regulated sector where licenses are prerequisites of business, and has indeed been comatose for many years. Its only shareholder is Yvonne Yemoh, who contributed the 10,000 GHS share capital during the formation.
“The second Director is Christopher Amanortey of Akosombo Chambers. 3D TV also has no full-time employees. What is even more fascinating, it was only AFTER the PPA had approved the inclusion of the company’s name in the list of pre-qualified tenderers that, on 26th September 2017, the company modified its objects to include telecoms. Who did the research that turned up 3D TV Properties as one of the few companies in Ghana that could undertake this $179 million contract?”
IMANI Center for Policy and Education, Africa
IMANI Africa also raised concerns about Atlantic Assets Limited’s involvement in the Kelni-GVG tender.
Despite being a real estate investment company with no telecom experience, it was selected to bid for the $179 million project.
Represented by Peter Hoyah, a paralegal linked to the same legal consultancy as Aeon Logistics, IMANI pointed out that, Atlantic Assets had no expertise in signals processing, casting doubt on the integrity of the tender process.
IMANI Africa further highlighted discrepancies in the evaluation of the Kelni-GVG tender, noting that none of the GRA officials supposedly involved actually participated.
This raised questions, especially since the CMP was intended to unify GRA and NCA revenue processes.
Additionally, IMANI disclosed that, Mohamed Amin Suleman, a former employee of Global Voice Group, continued to evaluate the tender despite a clear conflict of interest. “The question is: why was he empaneled in the first place by the NCA?”
Flaws in Kelni Ltd’s Technical Proposal Exposed
Moreover, IMANI Africa exposed serious flaws in Kelni Ltd’s technical proposal, which was deemed the best by the Minstry of Communication’s compromised evaluation committee.
The proposal included misleading descriptions of equipment, such as renaming multi-protocol packet analyzers as separate packages to inflate costs.
According to IMANI, redundant and mis-specified entries, including various monitoring engines, were listed at over $700,000 per site, raising concerns about the integrity of the evaluation process.
“As IMANI has demonstrated severally in the past through our written and oral commentary, the proposed infrastructure plan for the SS7 and sigtran monitoring, which undergirds the whole CMP effort, was bloated and inflated by several millions of dollars, as was the operational and management plan.
“This was done with the full connivance of the Entity Tendering Committee, which is why it produced no technical report to justify any of the planned expenditures given the task at hand. Not a single technical opinion was written to show any effort at all to review the proposed architectural design and topology. Ghana’s money was just poured down the drain”.
IMANI Center for Policy and Education, Africa
The policy think-tank highlighted that at the CRTC level, significant failures worsened the situation.
Accordingly, IMANI stressed that the restricted tender awarded to Kelni Ltd was not published in the Public Procurement Bulletin, in violation of section 39(2) of the Public Procurement Act. “None of the serious questions that should have been asked were asked”.
IMANI lamented that nearly $180 million of the country’s valuable resources were wasted due to incompetence.
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