June 12

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DAILY HERITAGE TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2018 11
Politics
Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about
anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for
yourself —Henry James
IMANI throws light on five
critical matters of state
Man Dies in Car due to lack of
hospital beds
1. MR. OBIRI Yeboah lost the dad
last week because all major hospitals in
the capital, Accra, could not find a bed
for the ailing dad. Ghana, a population
of nearly 30 million has only 15,000
hospital beds available. What is worse
ONLY 54 ambulances are available for
all Ghanaians. And yet $178m that
could buy One million, seven hundred
and eighty hospital beds is being given
freely to a phantom project by your
Communication Ministry.
CitiNews; GVG saga: Gov’t sued
over Common Platform for telco
revenue monitoring
2. “Two citizens have sued the government
over the traffic monitoring,
revenue assurance and mobile money
monitoring Common Platform. The
two, Sara Asafu-Adjaye and Maximus
Amertogoh, are seeking an order restraining
the government from implementing
the Common Platform. he
key relief is “an order of interlocutory
injunction restraining the respondents,
whether, by themselves, their servants,
workmen, hirelings, agents, privies or
any persons claiming under or through
them, whosoever described from implementing
and operationalising the
Common Platform until the final determination
of this suit.” Joined to the
suit are the Ghana Chamber of
Telecommunications, the Ghana Revenue
Authority, the National Communications
Authority, along with three
telecom communications companies.”
KelniGVG Surfaces, Apparently.
3. A statement purported to have
emanated from KelvinGVG said that
has been testing their anti-fraud systems
(over the CDRs) and that since
the contract was signed in December
2017 only 3000 fraudulent calls were
captured for the 5 main telcos with a
total subscriber base of over 25 million.
Only 3000 fraudulent calls were
detected by KelvinGVG's monitoring
machines. We need to ask; were all the
3000 international calls? If no, how
many were international calls and how
many were domestic calls? By law, international
calls cost 0.19 cents per
minute in Ghana. Assuming all the
3000 calls were international calls and
each lasted for a minute, the total savings
to the tax payer is only $570. If all
the 3000 calls were international calls
and lasted 60 minutes each, (which is
unlikely), the total savings to the tax
payer is $34,200. If they were yet to be
connected to any of the networks,
how were they able to come by the
fact that 1938 fraudulent calls were
made? By what mode or method were
they testing.
NB: The telcos detect and parry
off 25,000 fraudulent each day. These
calls are being made by fraudsters because
it is lucrative to call Ghana from
outside. The issue of fraudulent calls is
a pricing issue, not machine monitoring
at inflated costs.
Imagine this will go on every
month for the next 10 years, paying
KelniGVG $1.5m every month for 10
years to return negligible value of unlikely
$34, 200.
4. Of UNI-PASS, GCNet, West
Blue and
Paperless Ports
IMANI has been studying the port
systems, specifically the paperless port
process, and would like to understand
the implications of adopting UNI-
PASS on the turnaround times and the
costs.
According to the Ministry of Trade
and Industry (MoTI), the introduction
of UNI-PASS is expected to make the
Ghana National Single Window
(GNSW) more comprehensive. In addition,
the UNI-PASS system will include
a clearance management system,
a cargo management system, an information
management system and an administration
system.
Questions:
a. Are all these functions missing
from the existing systems (GCNet and
West Blue platforms)? How easily can
they be added to the existing system
and at what cost?
b. The 2018 World Bank Doing
Business index indicates that Ghana
ranked 158 out of 190 countries in the
trading across borders indicator, a
four-point drop from 2017 rankings.
How does the UNI-PASS system enhance
trade facilitation in terms of the
Cargo Dwell Times?
c. How much percentage wise, are
revenues likely to increase from the existing
situation with the new system?
Will this be large enough to offset the
potential lost revenue from government
shareholding in GCNet?
d. The GCNet contract ends in
2023 while the West Blue contract expires
in 2020. This means that there
are still about 5 and 2 more years, respectively,
for them to operate the single
window system.
e. Is the government going to abrogate
these contracts and at what cost?
f. If government does not intend
to abrogate these contracts, how will
all three companies operate on the single
window platform? What is the implication
for trade facilitation?
g. What will the transition look like
and what consequences will it have for
trade facilitation and revenue mobilisation?
h. What motivated MoTI’s decision
to procure a new system instead of
strengthening existing systems?
We have written to the appropriate
authorities for answers to the above
and many more questions.
5. NEIP and later NABCO
The National Entrepreneurship
and Innovation Plan (NEIP) is a flagship
policy initiative of the government
of Ghana with the primary
objective of providing an integrated
national support for start-ups and
small businesses- Website.
a. In the 2018 budget statement,
the Finance Minister reported thus;
‘’The Ministry launched its flagship
programme, National Entrepreneurship
and Innovation Plan (NEIP) and
the National Business Plan Competition.
In addition, the Ministry procured
Private Sector Implementation
Partner for NEIP.’’
b. Building an
Entrepreneurial Nation
787. ‘’Mr. Speaker, Government
engaged a Private Sector Implementation
Partner (PSIP) to manage the
USD10million National Entrepreneurship
and Innovation Programme
(NEIP) and to raise additional funding
from the private sector. This programme
was launched by H.E. the
President on 25th August, 2017. The
Ministry for Special Development Initiatives
advertised and received 5,500
applications from young Ghanaian entrepreneurs.
These applications are
being vetted and successful entrepreneurs
will receive business advisory
services.’’
c. The following were the
bidders for selection of the
PSIP.
1. African SME Oragnaistaion 2.
CEPD Limited, 3. Fidelity Bank Consortium
4. Innohub Limited,5. Stanbic
Bank Consortium,6. MDF West
Africa,7. KNUST Short Course Centre,8.
EMPRETEC,9. HCCL,10.
Solomon Bondzi-Quaye,11. GBIIG,12.
Kwaku Adu-Mensah
d. We have been reliably informed
that African SME Oragnaistaion won
the bid to be the PSIP to NEIP and
Ministry of Business Development.
e. We understand that African SME
Oragnaistaion begun work but was
later sidelined by the Ministry of Business
Development for unexplained
business reasons.
f. Which agency or company has
the Ministry of Business Development
been working with since it disowned
African SME Oragnaistaion?
g. What are the productive plans of
NEIP beyond announcing the processing
of 7,000 start-up applications?
Are there really 7,000 applications?
We shall return with further questions
and a review of NABCO, the
Nation Builders Corp.
IMANI commiserates with the
leadership of NEIP, the Ministry of
Business Development on the recent
loss of the former’s deputy CEO to
careless medical care.
EC impasse: constitutional crisis ahead – Asiedu Nketia
BY KWAME ACHEAMPONG
THE GENERAL secretary
of the main
opposition National
Democratic Congress
(NDC) has
predicted a constitutional
crisis ahead of the country if
the protracted tension at the electoral
commission is not resolved
immediately.
According to him, the impasse
at the election management body
has obstructed the undertaking of
crucial decisions and actions that
should have been made after the
2016 elections.
The EC boss Charlotte Osei
and some of her deputies have
been engrossed in public disagreement
over how affairs are conducted
at the institution. Both
sides have accused each other of
incompetence and financial impropriety.
A petition sent to the president
for the dismissal of the
commissioners is being considered
by a committee set up the Chief
Justice as Ghana’s constitution demands.
Addressing Members of the
NDC AT Aflao in the Ketu South
district of the Volta region, Mr
Asiedu Nketia said the issues
•Mrs Charlotte Osei, EC boss
plaguing the commission
must be a major worry to
Ghanaians.
“My fear is that we
will get so close to the
next elections and there
will be too many things
yet undone, and if we are
not careful we are leading
this nation into a constitutional
crisis. We have
been warned not to speak
for fear of being cited for
contempt. If there is anything
leading us into crisis
I will prefer to talk about
it and risk being cited for
contempt than to keep
quiet.
“Whatever is happening about
the EC must be happen quick
enough so they can look forward,
anything and undertake their activities
before the 2020 elections, the
alternative will be a chaotic election.
And Ghanaians are not ready
for that. We demand that the results
of the 2016 elections are
gazetted,” he said.
The NDC executive also appealed
to the National Identification
Authority to include more
means of identity for the Ghana
card instead of restricting themselves
to passport and birth certificate.