General News of Sunday, 1 October 2023
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2023-10-01Ablakwa releases ‘inaccessible details’ of contract awarded to Frontiers for COVID test at the airport
COVID-19 testing at airport
Ghanaian
The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has released details of the contract between the government and Frontiers Healthcare Services Ltd to conduct COVID-19 testing at the Kotoka International Airport in 2020.
The contract records had been demanded several times through the Right to Information Act but were not
Read full articlemade available.
According to Ablakwa, his sources have been able to land the documents.
Details have revealed that the contract was awarded to Frontiers on August 31, 2020, and work began on September 1, 2020.
The North Tongu MP who calls himself the SOA Oversight said the awarding of the contract neglected the Public Procurement laws in a way that showed that the government wanted to “loot and share” in the scheme.
Here is the full release below:
TWI NEWS
EXPOSING THE CORRUPT FRONTIERS COVER-UP
The irredeemably corrupt Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government believes it has successfully blocked access to all information on its criminal Frontiers COVID-19 Airport Testing deal.
Not even a directive and a GHS200,000.00 fine imposed by the RTI Commission following a Joy News petition has been helpful in compelling Akufo-Addo’s appointees at the Ghana Airport Company Limited and the larger Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration to disclose the requested information on the Frontiers contract in the interest of transparency and accountability.
Once again, I have bad news for this buccaneer government. In the supreme national interest, I have by the Grace of God intercepted all the relevant documents on this dubious Frontiers heist, notwithstanding government’s desperate efforts at a shameless cover-up.
SOA Oversight shall ensure that this grand Frontiers create, loot and share; together with all those who FRONTED for FRONTIERS are duly exposed and sanctioned for God and Country.
Today's exposé will focus attention on the bombshell offer letter from the Ghana Airport Company Limited to Frontiers Healthcare Services Limited, dated August 31, 2020 and signed by former Managing Director, Mr. Yaw Kwakwa.
This explosive offer letter reveals the following:
1. Frontiers was handpicked in an opaque sweetheart deal after a hush-hush discussion;
2. Ghana's procurement laws were blatantly and violently flouted. In fact, Ghana’s procurement laws were suspended;
3. This was not a competitive exercise as credible institutions such as Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research, Korle Bu Central Laboratory and others who were at the forefront of the COVID containment were sidelined as government opted for the overnight incorporated dubious Frontiers;
4. This letter incredibly reveals how an offer was made to Frontiers on 31st August, 2020 and how actual testing magically commenced the next day, September 1, 2020. Something to soon feature in Guinness World Records;
5. In a total rip off, the government per the offer letter asked for a fixed share of a measly and wickedly unpatriotic $10 per test as Frontiers keeps $140 per test considering that Frontiers was charging each passenger $150;
6. Shockingly, Frontiers was asked according to the offer letter to make a paltry and insulting payment of only $97,109.00 as proof of acceptance of the offer for an exclusive control of the Upper Arrival, Terminal 3, KIA — regardless of the fact that Frontiers stood to make and has indeed made profits worth hundreds of millions of dollars;
7. Despite this outrageous giveaway, Frontiers was exempted from paying water bills;
8. The offer letter did not provide technical specifications, standards and the specific amount of investment Frontiers was obliged to make in setting up the testing facility which actually exposes how everything was skewed by government officials to collude with Frontiers in raping Ghanaians;
9. The offer letter made no reference to mandatory authorization from the Health Facilities Regulatory Authority (HeFRA) as a condition precedent which explains why Frontiers commenced work many months before it applied to HeFRA for licensing after my original exposé;
10. From the intercepted offer letter, Frontiers was granted an unfathomable long duration of 2 years to loot, create and share; and that was regardless of whether Covid is defeated in a few weeks or not. This also explains why Ghana was basically the only country still testing at the airport many months after airport authorities in many other jurisdictions had stopped and dismantled their testing systems;
11. The evidence is overwhelming that this Frontiers deal was a grand operation between a buccaneer government and lootocratic entrepreneurs to make a fortune at a time many were being killed and hospitalized by a devastating pandemic.
