How NCA Scam Was Cooked…Contract Signed 6 Months Before Cabinet Approval

The provisional licence to operate the Interconnect Clearing House (ICH) service was issued to Afriwave Telecom, six clear months before the policy received cabinet approval, raising eyebrows about what went into the nefarious deal.

A letter signed by the Deputy Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA) and headed: “Provisional Licence to Build and Operate Facilities for the Provision and Operation of Clearing House Services in the Republic of Ghana”, revealed that Afriwave was given the green light on June 2, 2015.

The letter read in part: “The National Communications Authority (NCA) is pleased to inform you that your request has been favourably considered…The NCA hereby grants a Provisional licence to Afriwave Telecom Ghana Limited to Build and Operate Facilities for the Provision and Operation of Clearing House Services in Ghana…”

However, cabinet, in a letter dated 11th December, 2015, and signed by its Secretary, Roger K. Angsomwine, stated that the policy was considered and subsequently approved on the 10th day of December, 2015.

The public brouhaha which accompanied the Ministry of Communication’s defective defence in the fraudulent issuance of the ICH licence to Afriwave Telecom, led to this revelation, first by the Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh and later by the President of Imani Ghana, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe.

Mr. Cudjoe, who had a leaked report of the Application Evaluation Panel (AEP) which settled on Afriwave, had complained that the process that underpinned the award of the contract was fraught with rigging. But the NCA and the Deputy Minister of Communications discredited the Imani version of the report.

Last Saturday, on Joy FM’s News File, Mr. Kwakye Ofosu claimed the document being relied upon by Imani was a fabricated one, only to be discovered later that the authentic copy he claimed was in his possession had not being signed, which meant that it was fake, making his arduous task of rubbishing Imani’s document, crowned with mockery and embarrassment.

This expose’ consequently, irked the 20-year old National Communications Authority, which, yesterday published the so-called authentic copy on its website.  Surprisingly, after the publication, Mr. Kwakye Ofosu,  in an interview with Accra-based Joy FM, was left with no option than to confirm the signatures of all eight members of the Application Evaluation Panel, together with that of the Board Chairman, contained on the back page of the report made public by Imani, after his earlier denial.

This time, his feeble explanation further deepened the reprehensible engagement of the NCA in the award of the contract. The report being heavily relied upon by the policy think tank, for him, was the draft copy.  But an incensed Mr. Franklin Cudjoe considered the new NCA report as nothing more than a doctored document.  A comparative glance at the Imani and the NCA copies of the report showed that they bore some semblance. Both reports were signed on the 30th day of January, 2015, by all eight members of the Application Evaluation Panel.

The signature of the Board Chairman of the NCA, together with his comment, in the case of the leaked report, was contained on one page; the NCA had its on two separate pages. Again, while the NCA copy had 66 pages, 67 was the case of Imani.  The figures had been painstakingly calculated to tally with the expected awarded marks, which is the converse in the Imani version, where Afriwave Telecom scored more than the maximum awarded marks in the scores awarded all the competing companies in the three main categories–Legal &Management, Technical Capabilities and Financial Capabilities.

In his rebuttal, Mr. Cudjoe told The Chronicle that: “It turns out the Ministers of Communications have three versions of the NCA report when we at IMANI had the legitimate one. Their new report has 66 pages and ours 67 pages.” He added: “These are their own unsigned and amenable soft copy which Felix sent to News file and was caught, the newly doctored NCA report which has no signature of the board chairman alongside those of the evaluation panel and the signed hard copy which the ministers of communications have but the signature of the board chairman of the NCA is on a separate sheet.”

The Imani boss found it strange as to why the NCA did not publish the report even though it had completed the report 13 months earlier.  He asked rhetorically: “Why go through all this trouble when you finalised the report 13 months ago and awarded a license? Couldn’t you have published it then?” According to Mr. Cudjoe, “The Ministry of Communications even went to seek Cabinet approval for the tendering process on December 10, 2015 when it had together with the NCA awarded the license in January 2015 and June 2015.”

He further soiled the NCA when he said that the Ministry of Communications had locked horns with the Ministry of Finance over who had the mandate to undertake revenue assurance.  “The mandate is in law and the Finance Ministry through the Ghana Revenue Authority has the mandate not the Ministry of Communications. So you now understand the source of the energy of the Ministry to defend the NCA.

“Well, it seems the Ministry of Communications wants to start collecting taxes! I am simply saying ignore the NCA. They doctored the report,” he pointed out, adding that because the report was doctored, the fear of distorting information on subsequent pages “made them leave these trails. Check page 23 of 63, 20 of 63, etc, of the newly doctored report of the NCA.”

Declaring that the new NCA report contained inconsistencies, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe touched on the colour format for scanning the same document, which he presumed were from the same scanner. Interestingly, on comparative grounds, they looked different.

“Funny enough, these inconsistencies correspond to the actual report narrative, and that of the evaluation score table. These two categories are different in colour / contrast. It can only be inferred that different scanners, different scanning periods, apply to these categories, as it is impossible to change the contrast for different pages of the document when scanning.

Standard report writing does not suggest that captions/subheadings appear as the last line on a page whiles the narrative of that subheading goes onto another page. Indeed this principle is completely kept throughout the report we have.”

He also posited that “Take a look at the final detailed score sheet, which is also an exhibit/appendix 3 on page 60. If their scanned evaluation report is anything to go by, then the right side of appendix 3 should have been perforated from the binding, if it truly came from the same document.  “However, appendix 3 alone isn’t perforated, whiles the appendix 3 inserted in the evaluation report is perforated. (Audit Trail will always catch you because you don’t think like the auditor). Talk less of the differences in the contrast from the scan of both documents.”

The ICH contract is primarily hinged on revenue assurance, where international calls would be monitored to ensure that the taxes collected from telecom operators, actually correlate with the air time used by their subscribers. And in this undertaking, Afriwave is expected to generate at least one billion United States Dollars over the next 10 years.

By Pascal Kafu Abotsi

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