The Member of Parliament for the Obuasi West constituency, Kwaku Kwarteng, says he will not apologize to the Ministry of Communications over his claims that they had breached the law by asking Afriwave to monitor revenue generated from international calls, a work already being done by Info Subah Solutions.
Kwaku Kwarteng had alleged that the Communications Minister had ‘criminally’ engaged Afriwave Telcom Ltd to do the same job Subah is doing and is paying both with tax payers money.
[contextly_sidebar id=”QJa381qkLRek1e5VKwLMZzsjzyslMsSd”]He alleged that the Minister through the National Communications Authority (NCA), directed telecom operators in the country to allow Afriwave access into their system.
The legislator further alleged the action by the minister suggests that he has a personal parochial interest in Afriwave Telcom Ltd.
He argued that such arrangements are against the laws of the country because the contract with Subah has not yet ended.
But the Ministry of Communications denied the allegations saying government is not paying Afriwave for their current services.
“To his knowledge, no money has been paid by the NCA to Afriwave Telecom Ltd (Hence no double payment for that matter),” a statement from the Ministry stated.
The statement also said the Minister has no interest in the deal and that the NCA decided to allow Afriwave to carry out monitoring trials on the facilities so that “by the expiry of the existing contract in May 2016 the nation will not lose revenue as a result of the transition.”
The Communications Ministry also rejected the claims saying the Minister does not have any personal interest in Afriwave.
However, in an interview with Citi News, the legislator still stood to his grounds saying he had no intentions of damaging the minister’s reputation.
“It wasn’t my intention to damage anybody; I just wanted to hear that really we are not replacing Subah now…“I’m not going to contest this but I hope that, that bit will not detract from the main issue output—protecting the national purse. If he denies it, we want to see his conduct not reflecting any such thing because so far, the way he has been conducting himself in this whole business over Afriwave and revenue monitoring, creates a lot of room for suspicion and I’m not the only one saying this.”
He said he made the claims due to evidence available to him and that it was “to signal to the minister that the way he was bending backwards to please Afriwave suggests that he might have an unhealthy interest and that such conduct confirms suspicion that he has an interest in Afriwave.”
“I still hold my suspicions because I think the manner in which this has been handled suggests clearly that somebody has an unhealthy interest and my suspicion is still there and I have no apologies at all. My suspicions are very legitimate,” he insisted.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana