Peprah didn’t approve $72m SSNIT OBS purchase – Aide

Former Board Chairman of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Kwame Peprah, did not superintend or sanction any software that costs $72 million, his aide, Justice Opoku Agyeman, has said.

“It is also instructive to understand that, Mr Kwame Preprah’s board did not approve the payment of the said amount nor anything close to it.

“It is on records that, by the time Mr Kwame Preprah was exiting office, discussions were far advanced for the purchase of a software to expedite the operations of the Trust,” a statement by Mr Agyeman on Thursday, August 24 stated.

The Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) is currently investigating five former officials of SSNIT in connection with alleged financial malfeasance relating to the procurement of the OBS software.

Even though ICT experts have criticised the cost of the application, the former Director-General of SSNIT, Ernest Thompson, has said there is nothing wrong with the $66million software contract approved by the previous board.

According to Mr Agyeman, it has come to “our knowledge, an interview granted by the immediate past board chairman of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Professor Joshua Alabi, on Citi FM, with regards to the purchase of a $66 million dollar software for the Trust”.

He said he wants “to put on record that all information regarding the said software can be found in the various memos to which Mr Kwame Preprah personally has copies”.

He said Prof Alabi is on record to have said that the board Mr Preprah chaired approved the transaction and by extension any wrong doing should be attributable to them.

However, he was of the view that: “Assuming without admitting that the said argument should be adhered to, doesn't it raise serious issues bordering on integrity and competence? As a new board chairman taking over from a previous board, what prevented you from going further after the query to stop the transaction if in the wisdom of the board, of which you were the chairman, it was wrong or smacks fraud? Now, the argument that there were clauses that tied the board to the decision of the previous board is flawed. For heaven’s sake, don't we have an Attorney-General's office? Couldn't we have referred the matter to that office for proper legal advice leading to the termination or otherwise of the transaction? Why is the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ernest Thompson, defending the contract and the immediate past chairman to the board saying otherwise?”

He continued: “So far as the purchase of the OBS for the Trust is concerned, the board to which Mr. Kwame Preprah chaired came to an end as far back as 2012, by which time no payment had been effected.”

He added that at the right time, all documents with respect to the software and in connection with the transaction relating to the purchase of the same and in possession of Mr Peprah will be made available for the consumption, and advised the public to “rise above hate and pettiness”.