SSNIT Director-General, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang
The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) continues to pay for certain components of the already paid $72 million software contract awarded in 2012.
SSNIT Director-General, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang said there are running cost the Trust is incurring with every month that passes by.
He told Evans Mensah on Joy FM’s Top Story Thursday, he has been reviewing the contract since he assumed office to ensure value for money.
The SSNIT boss said he wants to fix the gaps in execution of the contract because of the initial commitment made by the Trust.
The revelation of the actual cost of SSNIT’s software contract has sparked public outrage.
The contract was to replace the manual nature of work at the Trust with complete automation.
It was to provide superior services to SSNIT customers, reduce member enrolment cycle through forms, provide effective reporting solution, achieve real time processing of contribution reports and reduce benefit processing time.
Out of the 10 companies that bidded for the contract, Perfect Business Systems and Silverlake Consortium was chosen.
The initial contract sum signed in 2012 was $34 million but within a four-year period it shot up to over $72 million.
Joy News has gathered the change in cost was because the software provided by the company was not fit for the work it was to do.
As a result, an additional $38 million was spent in remodeling the software to suitably deliver to the satisfaction of SSNIT.
Just when sections of Ghanaians thought only $72 million was spent on the software, the SSNIT boss said the Trust continues to pay some money for certain components of the contract.
“I have had to read most contracts that I have to pay on” he announced.
Dr Tenkorang said he is concerned about how the Trust can fix the gaps in the contract implementation at a minimum to no cost.
He said there are many services that the contractor is providing that cost SSNIT every month.
“We’ve all agreed that there are certain clauses that doesn’t buy us much [but] the important thing is that they [contractor] are willing to engage,” he added.
Inspite of all the costs incurred, Dr Tenkorang confirmed the system is still not working.
Source: Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brakopowers | Austin.powers@myjoyonline.com | Instagram: @realbrakopowers
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