Ghana Card contract won’t pass value for money audit – Former NIA boss

File: President Akufo-Addo is the first Ghanaian to be issued with the card[/caption] A former Chief Executive Officer of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Osei Kwame Griffiths, says the public-private partnership (PPP) agreement for the National Identification System (NIS) project is “highly inappropriate”. He also says the contract is overpriced. “In its current form, I have serious doubts the contract will pass a value for money audit,” he said in a release on Monday. The release is to react to assertions by NIA on the project, which failed to roll out last Monday. The Authority apologised for the outcome. READ: Registration for Ghana Card suspended indefinitely after failed roll-out Mr Griffiths contends that the $124 million contributed by government in the $293 million contract was enough for the project given the cost recovery measures outlined by the Authority. ‘National security threat’ He listed firms like CIDC of China, Multimedia Glory of Malaysia and EDAPS of Ukraine as having less budgets to execute the project. “PPP is not a preferred means of procuring the registration of Ghanaians, since the registration of a country’s nationals is a national security issue,” he stated. “This is further echoed by a resolution passed by ECOWAS in Niamey, Niger in February 2014 that issues of National Identification, be considered a matter of National Security.” He said the Danish partner company to execute the project, IMS, poses a national security threat. “Wouldn’t Denmark find it unacceptable for a partly owned Ghanaian company to partner their National ID Institution to provide ID Cards for their nationals?” He ultimately called for a review of the contract. Source: 3news.com|Ghana Follow @3Newsgh]]>