The Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Baba Jamal has told Citi News that his outfit followed due process in awarding the contract to I.T firm, Subah Infosolutions to purchase motorbikes for the various MMDAs.
The Ministry has ordered all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to make payments to Subah Infosolutions and Street Naming Ghana Limited for the procurement of motorbikes and other equipment for the national street naming exercise.
Justifying the contract to Subah on the Citi Breakfast Show, Baba Jamal said the company satisfied all requirements during the tendering process.
He clarified that Subah was only contracted to supply motorbikes “and that is the only thing they are supplying.”
Baba Jamal revealed that Subah initially applied for all the 13 contracts by Ministry for the street exercise “and I am aware that at a point, they were considered for about one or two [contracts] but they came back to say that because of the dollar rate, the cost has gone high and for that matter, they cannot supply so it had to be given to the second highest bidder.”
He added that the awarding of the contracts was done through the central tender “so I just want to make it clear that it took us eight months to go through these processes.”
The Akwatia MP maintained that the Ministry ensured that all legal and due processes were followed to the latter “and we ensured that we have value for money for this country” and that action was taken due to the impeding deadline to the street naming project.
Baba Jamal pointed out that if the MMDAs had been allowed to purchase their own motorbikes, the project would have been delayed further.
According to him, the Ministry will not be able to meet the September deadline due to the tendering process “it is not our fault but because of the system.”
Subah has come under fire for its involvement in the street naming project.
People have questioned why the help of the IT company was sought to purchase motorbikes for the MMDAs.
These concerns were raised by the public following an ongoing issue between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Subah in which Subah was alleged to have been paid millions of Ghana cedis for no work done.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan