Parliament summons Ursula Owusu over $89m deal

• Posted on May 25, 2018
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has been invited by the Second Deputy Speaker, Alban Bagbin, to brief parliament on the $89 million contract between the ministry and a Haitian company – Kelni GVG.

It is meant for the design and implementation of a common platform for traffic monitoring, revenue assurance and mobile money monitoring.

The invitation by Mr Alban Bagbin for the minister to come and brief the house on the said contract follows an urgent application by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.

He wanted the people’s representatives to be briefed about the contract which has generated a lot of public discussions.

During yesterday’s sitting, the MP for North Tongu raised the matter and said that IMANI Ghana had raised questions about the contract sum and the manner the contract was awarded, stressing that people had started blaming parliament for not being proactive as far as the contract is concerned.

He said it is, therefore, important for the house to invite the minister to come and brief MPs on the whole deal.

In a related development, Mr Alban Bagbin, who presided over proceedings yesterday, also granted the request by the first deputy minority chief whip, Ahmed Ibrahim, for parliament to invite the Administrator of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) to come and brief the Committee of the Whole about some changes made in the original formula for the sharing of the (DACF).

According to Ahmed Ibrahim, he had heard that the administrator had ordered that about 80% of the monies approved for the district assemblies be returned to his office for central redistribution purpose, and so he wants the administrator to come and explain the rationale behind that decision.

By Thomas Fosu Jnr