Julie Essiam’s darling, TATA fined $194 million in the US

A US court has ruled that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of India must pay around $194 million for misappropriating trade secrets, according to a regulatory filing last month.

The case was filed by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), now merged with DXC Technology Company (DXC), in the United States District Court, Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.

The court ordered TCS to pay CSC $56.15 million in compensatory damages, $112.3 million in exemplary damages, and $25.77 million in prejudgment interest through June 13, 2024. The court also issued certain injunctions and other reliefs against TCS.

TCS stated it has strong arguments against the judgment and plans to seek a review or appeal to protect its interests.

Meanwhile, it also maintains that the judgment will not significantly impact its financials and operations.

Ghana

TCS is the same company that has been clandestinely awarded a contract in Ghana for domestic tax mobilization, in a manner that violates all the public procurement laws of the country.

The Commissioner General of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Julie Essiam went to India together

with Head of Procurement at GRA, Daniel Foli, and signed a contract with TCS to come take over Ghana’s domestic revenue mobilization from 2026. Techfocus24 has made an RTI request for a copy of the signed contract but to no avail.

This move by Julie Essiam was in spite of the fact that the former CG, Rev. Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah canceled the whole process for the award of that contract, which started in 2022 with 12 bids, of which TCS had the highest cost of $69 million.

The GRA first canceled the process on August 21, 2023 due to lack of funds. But on the blind side of everyone else, GRA wrote exclusively to TCS and their local partner IPMC to submit a technical and financial proposal in September 2023, in total breach of the public procurement law. Then on January 3, 2024, GRA again wrote to TCS/IPMC that the process as been completely canceled.

But when Julie Essiam took over as CG, instead of starting the whole process all over again, to give all the 12 candidates a fair chance at the job, she hand picked TCS and awarded the contract to them in complete disregard of the procurement laws, recommendations of the Central Tender Review Committee, and without recourse to the GRA board.

Meanwhile, it is not a secret that TCS’s solution, called iTAX, has been kicked out of at least four other African countries because it was found to be problematic in many respects.

In a meeting at GRA recently, when TCS was asked to show proof of the efficacy of their solution anywhere else, they hid behind the excuse that “for security reasons”, they would rather keep that private. But the truth is they have been kicked out of Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia and Uganda. Even in their own country India, TCS’s solution is not being used.

The $194 million fine against TCS in the US, which was due to misappropriation of trade secrets should be of concern to the GRA and to Ghanaians. Another matter which should be of even greater concern to Ghanaians is why one person, Julie Essiam, would so blatantly defy all the rules and will the country’s domestic tax mobilization to TCS.

The question on many minds is “who is backing Julie Essiam and who will the award of such a contract to an Indian company with a questionable track record benefit – is it Ghana or some greedy individuals who have chosen to mortgage the future of the country for their selfish benefit”?

Source:techfocus24.com