A member of the team responsible for drafting the manifesto for Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia‘s presidential campaign, Razak Awudulai, has been revealed to have received a significant sweetheart deal worth Ghc250 million from the government.
Awudulai, reportedly a member of the 2024 Manifesto Committee for Dr. Bawumia, had his private company, Spectrum Fibre Limited, single-sourced by the government to construct a data solutions center that already exists.
The Public Procurement Authority (PPA), which single-sourced Spectrum Fibre Limited, stated that the company was to “build a Wide Network (WAN) Connectivity Services and Data Solution Centre for GHS’ 745 sites in all regions on an Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) basis for a 10-year period valued at a colossal US$18,480,125.00.”
However, Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who intercepted the letter contracting Spectrum Fibre, noted that the services the PPA asked the company to provide already exist. Furthermore, Spectrum Fibre Limited has no known track record in the area of the project it has been contracted for.
In a statement addressing the revelations, Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa described the arrangement as a sweetheart deal orchestrated by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and his government for a close associate.
“Digitalization has become the new conduit for mega looting of billions of taxpayer and donor funds through dubious, duplicative and deadly single-sourced procurements even as conditions in the health sector continue to deteriorate alarmingly.
“Seeing how lucrative the digitalization booty has been so far, a few more crony companies have been invited to the looting party apparently to come “bamba with the big boys” (all royalties paid to Goya Menor & Nektunez),” Hon. Ablakwa wrote.
Describing his efforts to combat corruption through personal vigilance as “Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa (SOA) oversight,” the MP revealed that he intercepted documents dated 5th October, 2023, confirming the Public Procurement Authority’s (PPA) approval for the company owned by Razak, who is involved in “special duties” for Dr. Bawumia, to be awarded the contract.
According to the documents, the approval letter was signed by PPA Chief Executive, Mr. Frank Mante, and addressed to the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye.
“The intercepted PPA letter grants the Ghana Health Service approval to single source Spectrum Fibre Company Limited to “build a Wide Network (WAN) Connectivity Services and Data Solution Centre for GHS’ 745 sites in all regions on an Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) basis for a 10-year period valued at a colossal US$18,480,125.00.
“At the current exchange rate, that is a staggering GHS245million,” Hon. Ablakwa wrote.
According to the MP, top officials within Ghana’s health sector that he has spoken with on conditions of anonymity have only expressed outrage over the contract because the US$18.48million (GHS245million) contract is needless.
“These top deep-throat sources say what Spectrum Fibre has been handpicked to do are already contained in the massive US$100million (GHS1.3billion) contract also awarded under an opaque single-source procurement method in 2017 to Lightwave eHealthcare Solutions Limited.”
Already, he added, a similar single-sourced sweetheart deal with a company called Lightwave, has resulted in the colossal sum of GHS595,873,749.23.
“With over GHS595million already paid to Lightwave under this supposedly bankrupt economy, every patriotic Ghanaian would be on the side of these top officials within the health sector who are livid and have legitimately had enough of the needless duplication and reckless dissipation of resources for private gain in the name of digitalization.”
According to Hon. Ablakwa’s revelation, Spectrum Fibre was incorporated in 2017, a period coinciding with the Akufo-Addo government’s assumption of office. This period saw a surge in the establishment of companies by many NPP-affiliated individuals seeking state contracts.
The directors of Spectrum Fibre are Razak Awudulai and Fati Baba.
Spectrum Fibre Limited was incorporated on October 25, 2017, as shown in the attached incorporation details.
Despite being single-sourced for a project, Spectrum Fibre has no track record in carrying out the specific tasks they have been engaged for.
“Further checks reveal that the owner of Spectrum Fibre, Mr. Razak Awudulai is currently serving on Vice President Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia’s 2024 Manifesto Communications Committee. Insiders say he also carries out “special duties” for the Bawumia 2024 campaign.
“Mr. Razak Awudulai was also an appointee of President Akufo-Addo when he served as Managing Director of Go Energy, a subsidiary of GOIL in President Akufo-Addo’s first term. (See appointment letter attached).
“Further digging also reveal that Mr. Razak Awudulai is an MD of another digitalization company known as Broad Spectrum Limited which has been handed over millions of Ghana Cedis under questionable circumstances by the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund,2 Hon. Ablakwa wrote.
Hon. Ablakwa highlighted that the Spectrum Fibre deal did not receive approval from the National Information Technology Agency (NITA). He emphasized that this contravenes Act 771 and disregards the Minister of Communications and Digitalization’s circular of 16th June, 2017.
“It is also to be noted that under the World Bank US$50million eTransform connectivity project, as many as 100 health facilities have already been captured which further exacerbates the wasteful and needless fears raised by stakeholders about the Spectrum Fibre deal.”
Mr Ablakwa has stated his intention to pursue legal action, including dragging those involved in the sweetheart deal to court, due to the legal breaches and wastage involved. He plans to immediately seek legal restraints to stop these blatant data protection violations.
Then, he will also, “Petition the OSP on the corruption related aspects of this latest exposé; and Petition donor partners to carry out a forensic audit into all health digitalization projects being funded by them;
“file a motion in Parliament demanding a much broader bi-partisan enquiry into all digitalization projects. “