The Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO), has disclosed that initial investigations into the financial malfeasance uncovered at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) indicates that the 72 million dollar figure is likely to balloon after investigations are concluded.

According to the anti-graft body, it has given itself a week more, to conclude investigations into how the $72 million was spent on Operational Business Suite (OBS) in a bid to digitize the pension management Trust.

“As I speak to you, my men are still investigating some workers and officials of SSNIT. There is also a gentleman called Hagan we have interviewed. He was the Project Manager,” Executive Director of EOCO, Mr. K.K Amoah said in an interview on Peace FM.

He added “some items stated in the contract were not supplied. $34 million was set aside for the contract. It was bloated to about $72-73 million. We haven’t completed with the investigations, but I believe the figures may go up.”

Background

SSNIT settled for the $72 million OBS software to automate all the core processes in the administration of pension although it received tenders to undertake the project at much cheaper prices including $9 million.

A document on the deal indicates that the eventual winner of the contract produced a tender price of $27,610,792 but that was reviewed to 34, 011,914.21 after the General Services Manager of SSNIT identified arithmetic errors in the tender of the eventual winner, Perfect Business Systems, and Silverlake Consortium.

Perfect Business Systems and Silverlake Consortium was chosen out of the total of 10 companies and joint venture responded to the tender by the October 19, 2011, deadline.

Perfect Business System’s $34million was almost nine times the amount presented by Persol Systems, about $4million.

Sambus Company Limited presented the second least bid price of $9.8 million. After the deal between SSNIT and Perfect Business Systems and Silverlake Consortium was sealed in 2012, the cost of the project increased by about $32million.

The increase was attributed to the procurement of additional equipment including servers and flash drivers and headsets.