{"id":188739,"date":"2016-02-11T10:00:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T10:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=188739"},"modified":"2016-02-11T10:00:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T10:00:47","slug":"imani-insists-afriwave-deal-is-fraudulent-despite-ncas-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/02\/imani-insists-afriwave-deal-is-fraudulent-despite-ncas-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"IMANI insists Afriwave deal is fraudulent despite NCA’s denial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Policy Think Tank, IMANI Ghana, says it has in its possession a leaked document highlighting some \u201cfraudulent\u201d practices that facilitated the contract awarded to Afriwave Telecom Ghana,\u00a0to\u00a0provide a common platform for the routing, switching, billing and settlement of interconnect traffic for the telecommunication industry.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0document\u00a0according to IMANI, has confirmed its allegations that some persons at the National Communications Authority (NCA), manipulated the process leading to the award of the contract to Afriwave.<\/p>\n

IMANI’s latest revelation comes barely 24-hours after the NCA released a statement in which it\u00a0explained the role it played in the award of the contract and described IMANI’s claims as misleading.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”2HjTtHaFPR6ngntXKy3HwErU9QhyGKzU”]IMANI has already questioned the contract awarded to Afriwave to provide a common platform for the routing, switching, billing and settlement of interconnect traffic for the telecommunication industry.<\/p>\n

Their concerns followed similar claims<\/a><\/strong><\/span> raised by Member of Parliament for Obuasi West, Kweku Kwarteng.<\/p>\n

In IMANI’s new press release, the Think Tank\u00a0said it\u00a0has\u00a0now adopted a stronger stance because it is\u00a0privy to ample documentary evidence of fraudulent manipulations of the tender results.<\/p>\n

They outlined the factors that led to the supposed fraudulent outcome saying the 21-day time-frame used to review detailed technical and financial submissions from 5 companies competing to manage the interconnect clearing house (ICH) system was \u201cfarcical\u201d.<\/p>\n

They also claimed that\u00a0the evaluation panel even admitted in its report that no pre-qualification was done and that the panel also had no prior guidance and assistance from the NCA\u2019s technical staff.<\/p>\n

“The most telling point for IMANI is the fact that the panel manipulated its own scoring scheme to ensure that Afriwave came on top, regardless of the actual results.”<\/p>\n

\"Capture\"<\/p>\n

“Afriwave was awarded 5 marks in a section where the total available marks were ‘1’. This is the part where the applicants were to show that their \u2018operational support team\u2019 for the planned undertaking is up to scratch by presenting their CVs,\u201d their release stated.<\/p>\n

In light of these developments, IMANI say they are resurrecting their campaign against the current ICH policy, reiterating their demands to have the telecom industry freely choose a clearing house and to have the Ministry of Communications re-open the tender and provide adequate time for best practices to be followed.<\/p>\n

They are also urging President John Mahama and the Ministry of Communications to act quickly on the new information in order redeem the credibility of the whole process.<\/p>\n

Find below IMANI\u2019s reasons for declaring the Afriwave deal fraudulent.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. For such a complex undertaking, the 21 day timeframe used to review detailed technical and financial submissions from 5 companies competing to manage such a mission critical system as a monopoly interconnect clearing house system was not merely ridiculous, it was farcical.<\/li>\n
  2. The Evaluation Panel itself admit in its report that no pre-qualification was done. So in addition to the NCA never having reviewed the report of the Evaluation Panel, the panel also had no prior guidance whatsoever from the NCA\u2019s technical staff to assist it in its work.<\/li>\n
  3. There were no visits whatsoever to any of the applicants\u2019 operational locations or premises to ascertain their existing capacity.<\/li>\n
  4. There were no client references or testimonials of previous work done in the clearing and general telecom intermediation space. In fact, there were no references of any kind at all.<\/li>\n
  5. Some of the criteria were blunt instruments of no real relevance to the assessment. For instance, the Panel\u2019s idea of preventing \u2018conflict of interest\u2019 was to penalise any applicant who may already have a license with the NCA without regard to the broad range of licenses issued by the NCA. How could someone with a radio broadcasting license for instance be conflicted in providing ICH services?<\/li>\n
  6. Now the real meat. The Panel manipulated its own scoring scheme to ensure that Afriwave came on top, regardless of the actual results, and they did so with a brazenness that is almost farcical.<\/li>\n
  7. Afriwave was awarded 5 marks in a section where the total available marks were ‘1’. This is the part where the applicants were to show that their \u2018operational support team\u2019 for the planned undertaking is up to scratch by presenting their CVs.<\/li>\n
  8. This is on top of the fact that Subah having won all the two points available in the ‘Project Implementation Team’ subscore, compared to Afriwave’s score of 1, it was highly irregular for Afriwave to have been declared as having a superior ‘operational support team\u2019 given how interlinked the two requirements are.<\/li>\n
  9. It is weird that the panel purported to evaluate the company’s ‘Switch and Routing Platform’ and Fraud Management System, when Afriwave to date has been involved solely in the mast erection space. Which Switch, Routing and Anti-Fraud systems exactly were reviewed? Our understanding is that this evaluation was carried out on diagrams submitted by the parties.<\/li>\n
  10. Despite the \u2018equipment identity register\u2019 subscore having a maximum score of 1, Afriwave was awarded 4 marks against Subah’s 1.<\/li>\n
  11. Despite evidence of Telco Interconnections having a maximum subscore of 2, Afriwave was awarded 4 marks.<\/li>\n
  12. Despite \u2018topology scalability\u2019 having a maximum subscore of 1, Afriwave was awarded 2 marks.<\/li>\n
  13. Likewise, the requirement to provide a critical bill of quantity could only be scored a maximum of 1, yet, here too, Afriwave was given 2 marks.<\/li>\n
  14. Afriwave was thus given as much as 11 extra points for technical performance it could not have demonstrated, as the ratings were above the maximum allowed. I.e. the scoring was a mathematical impossibility.<\/li>\n
  15. If these strangely awarded points are subtracted from Afriwave\u2019s actual score, it should obtain 67.2 points, and not 78.2 points, and consequently should have lost out to Subah in the tender.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    –<\/p>\n

    By Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Policy Think Tank, IMANI Ghana, says it has in its possession a leaked document highlighting some \u201cfraudulent\u201d practices that facilitated the contract awarded to Afriwave Telecom Ghana,\u00a0to\u00a0provide a common platform for the routing, switching, billing and settlement of interconnect traffic for the telecommunication industry. The\u00a0document\u00a0according to IMANI, has confirmed its allegations that some persons at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nIMANI insists Afriwave deal is fraudulent despite NCA's denial - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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