OccupyGhana, a pressure group, has called on the government to within a week provide it with the detailed accounts of all the processes that led to the award of the interconnect clearing house (ICH) licence last year.
The group has also suggested that for the sake of good governance process and order, the President should set up an independent body to investigate the licence issuance process. That, it said, had become pertinent in the face of allegations and exposé made by IMANI Ghana of serious and damaging incidents of fraud in the evaluation process leading to the award of the licence last year.
Such a body, it averred, would verify or “rubbish the allegations” by IMANI Ghana.
Information request stonewalled
At a press conference in Accra Friday, the Mr Sydney Casley Hayford, a leading spokesperson said, contrary to its quest to seek information and clarity on public issues through the medium of dialogue and understanding, all attempts to seek information had been stonewalled by the Ministry of Communications and the National Communication Authority (NCA) “to absolute disrespect and ignoring of our letters.”
The group asserted that “while we will not be far from right from speculating that recent controversies over the ICH licence was the main reason why the NCA and your ministry were unable to reply our letters, we will give you the benefit of the doubt until you have properly furnished us with every document, report or agreements that have been requested.”
The group warned that if the leadership of the country failed in that quest, it would use other legitimate means and avenues not limited to the courts but also call on Ghanaians to hit the streets.
GYEEDA repayments
On the GYEEDA matter, the group said it was not impressed with the rate at which the government was collecting monies that GYEEDA had paid to companies.
The group said after reading portions of the Auditor-General’s 2013 report on the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), it wrote its first letter on June 1, 2015 to the Ministry of Youth and Sports yet the ministry failed to give a response in spite of two reminders.
On July 14, 2015, the group contended that it wrote letters to request information on payment schedules and parliamentary approvals on the various interest-free loans granted to the companies to the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, the former GYEEDA Board and the Youth Entrepreneurial Agency.
Resort to the courts
The same letters, it said, were copied to the Attorney-General, the Chief of Staff and Parliament.
“After receiving unsatisfactory response, we wrote directly to the Attorney-General on August 11, 2015 requesting same information” but that letter, it said, was also ignored.
“OccupyGhana has decided to use a more forceful approach in seeking information and we began last Thursday by hitting the courts with information on the Smartty’s bus branding issue and more will be following in due course,” it stressed.
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