Former Member of Parliament for Sekondi, Andrew Egyapa Mercer, has said that the Mahama administration can never justify awarding contracts based on sole-sourcing.
This assertion is based on the views the current administration expressed regarding sole-source contracts under the previous Akufo-Addo government.
He recalled that the NDC previously accused the Akufo-Addo administration of abusing sole-sourcing; therefore, awarding contracts via sole-sourcing now constitutes clear deception.
The Ministry of Roads cannot justify why all these projects have been awarded under sole-sourcing. They accused the past NPP government of abusing sole-sourcing, so what has changed? he said.
Prior to his comments, the Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways, Alhassan Suhuyini, stated that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) still stands by its past criticisms of sole-sourced contracts. He noted that it was the NDC’s view that the previous administration wantonly used sole-sourcing to award contracts, which led to inflated costs.
What we said about sole-sourcing, we still stand by it. We said it was wantonly being used and leading to inflated contracts, which affects the quality of work. We still stand by that, he said in response to a Fourth Estate documentary.
Suhuyini further stated that he did not see any scandal in the publication by The Fourth Estate regarding the “Big Push” project. He mentioned that when The Fourth Estate advertised a scandal, he was waiting for evidence to be established.
I was eagerly awaiting what the scandal was with the Big Push. They advertised a scandal, and we were waiting for the scandal. They wrote to us and requested information regarding these contracts, and we promptly responded without any qualms, as the law requires. Even before that, we started uploading this information on our website.
We were anticipating it. My first disappointment was that the publication suggested that if you criticized something in the past and you are now seen to be doing it, then in itself, it is scandalous. At best, you can say it is a double standard or hypocrisy, but that is not a scandal.
Source: 3news
