How weeks old company won Ghc518m Ghana Government Laptop Contract on Sole-sourcing

 

How a brand new Ghanaian company with no history or experience managed to win a 518million Ghana cedi contract on sole source basis only after a few weeks of its incorporation has shocked anti-corruption advocates who are demanding answers from Education Minister Dr. Emmanuel Adutwum and the Ghana Education Service.

The new company K.A. Technologies, just like its counterpart which got a contract to supply 853,000 mathematical sets at Ghc75 per one, got a contract to supply 350,000 laptops at a cost Ghc1,500 (later inflated to Ghc1,851) making a total of Ghc518,000,000 for the whole contract. Government will bear 70% of the cost while teachers pay the remaining 30%.

Checks at the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) revealed K.A Technology registered with the state procurement agency on 4th November, 2020 and had no prior business activity having been registered only days earlier. It lists its only clients as Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service. It registered its web domain on 20th November 2020 and started updating it on 30th June 2021 through one Kwabena Nana Kwarteng.

Nana Kwabena Kwarteng the suspect front used for the contract is a supposed man of God with an IT company based on the Spintex Road, same address perimeter for K.A Technology, which appeared to have been hurriedly incorporated for the sole purpose of winning the Ghc518million laptop contract.

Copies of the contract bids from the Public Procurement Board pursuant to section 40(2) of the Public Procurement Act, 663 have been hidden from the public whereas the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service and the Public Procurement have jointly refused to make public further details of the contracts for scrutiny

Further checks by MyNewsGh.com revealed that the Mandatory Eligibility Criteria set forth in Section III (C) of the procurement of the Information Technology Product document issued by the Public Procurement Authority was not met by K.A Technology before grabbing the half a billion contract.

K.A Technology which claims to be manufacturer of the Teachers Mate 1 (TM1) laptop failed to obtained clearance from the Ghana Standards Authority to certify the laptop it is supplying, this is more important especially when the Education Ministry bypassed brands like Dell, Toshiba, Acer, HP, Lenovo and other established brands with reputation for producing quality laptops of global acclaim for this manufacturer.

The same K.A Technology was revealed to have unlawfully obtained a tax clearance certificate to facilitate its legitimization of the dubious sole contract it was awarded.

Further checks from SSNIT revealed the company only recently obtained a certificate from the state company.

These were all after two teacher unions petitioned CHRAJ to probe how the new company won the contract, when it was incorporated, the names of the Directors, Secretary, the company’s valid business registration certificates, valid tax clearance certificate and VAT Registration certificate.

There is strong suspicion among various teachers that the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), and the Coalition for Concerned Teachers (CCT) have all been somehow silenced or compromised regarding the said contract.

The two group of teachers known as Innovative Teachers and the All Teachers Alliance Ghana believe the laptop contract has been inflated by more than 300% and are in court and at CHRAJ to challenge it.

Math Set contract

The Education Ministry is no stranger to dubious contracts. MyNewsGh.com was the original website that broke the news of the maths sets contracts and the arrest of Kwadwo Darko-Mensah, which all other website picked from.

This scandal came up over the procurement of 853,000 pieces of Kapek Mathematical Sets Instruments at Gh¢75 each, which Africa Education Watch revealed Liberia and Sierra Leone procured the same Kapek Mathematical sets Instruments from the same company even at retail price got it cheaper than what Ghana got for wholesale of 853,000 pieces.

MyNewsGh.com was also informed that the person behind the contract is the wife of big man who owns a big beach resort in Ghana but used Bluegrass Limited owned by Onasis Kwadwo Darko-Mensah as a front.

In a rather dramatic twist, Africa Education Watch also revealed that the actual price of the Mathematical Sets was Gh¢93 and not Gh¢75 as the Ministry of Education claimed.

According to Kofi Asare who is Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch, the actual price of the Kapek Mathematical sets procured by Ghana on sole-sourcing basis was higher than the Gh¢75 government announced because the 75 cedis excluded the tax exemption of $3.6million granted to the contractor, one Kwadwo Darko-Mensah.

CEO of Africa Education Watch, Mr. Kofi Asare said it is “very funny” for Education Ministry to justify the price of the mathematical sets using Kapek scientific calculator as decoy, as the same package costs far less in Liberia and Sierra Leone which also operate under WAEC.

The difference between KAPEK and the real scientific calculator is, KAPEK has no memory and cannot be programmed; Just to prevent students from putting stuff on then into the exam room. That is all.

So it is cheaper than the regular scientific calculator which is programmable. As for the plastic mathset it comes with, we know the price. Just go to Makola. Its less than GH 20. Infact, a similar KAPEK Mathematical Instrument sells for $10 In Liberia and $12 in Sierra Leone at retail; not wholesale. (Both WAEC member countries)

This Blue Grass Company bought ours at international distributor bulk order quantity of 850,000 and still supplied to government at $17 (inclusive the taxes*)

The unit cost is not GH 75; its GH 93. The GH 17 million tax exemption must be added to the GH 63 million and divided by the 853,000 pieces. He explained.

He said WAEC also didn’t make it compulsory to acquire the math sets as claimed by the Mathew Opoku Prempeh to justify the contract.

Source: MyNewsGh.com