EOCO raids company behind SSNIT deal
The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) on Tuesday raided the premises of Perfect Business Systems (PBS), the Information Technology (IT) firm behind the controversial $72 million SSNIT software deal.
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There were also unconfirmed reports that a similar raid had taken place at the residence of the Chief Executive Officer of PBS in Accra early Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, there are suggestions that the interdicted Head of the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department of SSNIT, ‘Dr’ Caleb Afaglo, may have to return all salaries paid him by SSNIT, following revelations that he presented fake documents for the job in 2015.
The retrieval of the salaries he had received since his appointment in October 2015 to July 2017 is expected to feature prominently in a crucial SSNIT Board meeting scheduled for today.
Integrity of fund
According to sources close to the SSNIT Board, chaired by a former Defence Minister, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, the governing board was determined to restore the integrity of the organisation.
The revelation over the lack of documents to back ‘Dr’ Afaglo’s advertised credentials came a week after a $72-million software deal awarded by the trust in 2012 was made public.
The contract has generated heated debate, causing public disaffection for the trust. The initial contract sum was $34 million and the project was intended to automate processes at SSNIT.
The software was to provide superior services for SSNIT customers, reduce member enrolment cycle through forms, provide effective reporting solution, achieve real time processing of contribution reports and reduce benefit processing time.
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Fund managers
But it was later revealed that the system cost SSNIT, which manages funds for pensioners, an unbudgeted $72 million within a four-year period and that the trust was still paying for some of its components, according to the current Director-General of SSNIT, John Tenkorang.
Investigations by EOCO revealed that ‘Dr’ Afaglo had neither a master’s degree nor a first degree, as he had claimed.
He was handed the job in October 2015 after serving as an IT consultant for SSNIT and other state institutions, including the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
TUC statement
Meanwhile, a statement signed and issued by Dr Yaw Baah, the Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), at the end of the union’s Regular Steering Committee meeting in Accra yesterday, said the TUC had deliberated extensively on the numerous scandals at SSNIT.
“We welcome the audit commissioned by the board of directors. The TUC will await the outcome of the audit before taking further action,” it said.
It said it expected the audit to be conducted with dispatch and that the outcome would be made public and assured the working people of Ghana and the public that it would work with the other representatives of labour on the SSNIT Board to secure the fund.
The statement urged the managers of SSNIT to recognise that the retirement income security of millions of Ghanaian workers were in their hands and that any act that jeopardised the pension scheme would not be tolerated.
