Subah; the small fly we want to kill with a sledge hammer

By: Romeo Adzah Dowokpor

Here we are, as usual, getting emotional and hysterical with some overly political about the payment of some tens of millions of dollars to Subah Infosolutions for a job that we think the National Communication Authority (NCA),if properly resourced, could have done easily thereby saving the state some revenue for developmental projects.

Are we so selective with our bashing and analysis or we are just ignorant about the existence of worse agreements of this nature?

What has been given to Subah pales in significance to the combined profits made by Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) like Bivac International, Gateway Services Limited, Ghana Link Network Service, Webb Fontaine Ghana Limited and Inspection Control Services in the performance of the core duties of Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) which are classification and valuation of imported goods based on which charges are made for revenue generation in the country.

Why are we crying about Subah when the DICs are milking the state drier of the needed revenue through such a contractual agreement for over a decade now when CEPS have the capacity to perform those same functions? Selective bashing or a plea for ignorance of the existence of such a worse agreement for the DICs?

One other issue keeps throbbing my mind. There are those who argue the point vehemently, some ideologically, that the state has no business in doing business (which l do not share in) by performing certain core functions because those must be left in private hands. They insist that the state must only provide the enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. The poor excuse that state institutions and companies can not function effectively unless they are privatized is an ideologically deficient and bankrupt stance cooked in the pot of capitalists to deprive the state from performing certain vital and key functions they (capitalists) want to take over and manage at abnormal profits.

Now, here is my dilemma: these same proponents now believe the NCA could have easily performed the functions that Subah have been contracted to do if the former was/is well resourced by the state. A position, l gladly welcome. But, are they now positing that state institutions are capable of performing to their expected satisfaction and even at profits when well-resourced? Is this not a defeatist and goal-shifting position to take or what exactly are their concerns?

That, the percentage given to Subah as its share of the revenue generated from tax collection from the Telcos is too much or such a contractual arrangement should not have existed at all or Subah did no work at all that deserved payment?

The annual profits made by these DICs are more than all the loans Ghana gets from the World Bank and the IMF every year.

Why must we as a nation allow private companies to be performing the core functions of CEPS (a public institution whose staff are paid by the poor tax payer) and making a lot of profit to the detriment of effective revenue mobilisation by the state when we always cry for money for development?

There was the noise some time back that CEPS did not have the technological and human capacity to effectively perform its core mandate in that regard, hence, the take-over by private companies. But if my memory serves me right, some staffs of CEPS were sent abroad and others trained here at a cost to acquire the needed skills and knowledge to handle the classification and valuation of imported goods into the country.

In fact, the then CEPS commissioner Emmanuel Doku as far back in 2008 stated that his outfit was ready to take over from the DICs following the installation of the Classification and Valuation office at Ridge which was specially built for the anticipated take-over by 2009

It has been almost six years since this statement was made but, sadly, CEPS is yet to take over from the DICs as the state continues to lose millions of dollars of revenue by this contractual agreement. What happened to those staffs that were trained at a cost? What happened to the office at Ridge? Why do we keep renewing the contracts of these DICs for doing a job that CEPS can easily do? Who is benefitting from these arrangements at the expense of the nation's good?

Some of the loan agreements that come before parliament are as meagre as $50 million, of course, to be paid with interest while DICs take over 5 times of that in a year alone. We keep begging for loans throughout the regimes of successive governments while we let private companies in most sectors of our economy milk us dry through unfavourable contractual agreements like the one between the government and DICs

The DICs take more from us. For me, the case of Subah is just some small fly we want to kill with a sledge hammer. It is high time we scrapped the operations of the DICs for CEPS to assume its core duties of evaluation and classification of imported goods to generate more revenue for the state. Let the ‘Subah interrogations’ also continue; Ghana as always, deserves better.

The writer can be contacted through romeodowokpor@yahoo.com