The Economic and Organized Crime Organization (EOCO) has exonerated the Bank of Ghana (BoG) of any wrongdoing in the contract award for the mobile money interoperability platform.

This was after one of the companies that lost the bid petitioned EOCO alleging procurement and administrative breaches leading up to the award of the contract.

There has been controversy about the actual amount for the contract; while the government has said it was ¢4.6 billion which it slashed to ¢4.5 million, a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana has disputed it.

Dr Asiama indicated that only ¢300,000 was actually marked for the project.

He explained that the amount of ¢ 4.6billion was what the contracted company will rather invest in the Interoperability platform over a 15 year period without any overlay from the government.

EOCO was petitioned to investigative by a party, Vals Intels Limited, which lost out in the procurement process or felt cheated.

But a report by EOCO, intercepted by Joy News, said BoG acted within its mandate in the award of the contract.

“…The investigations established that BoG compiled with its statutory duty by ensuring that the tender was duly processed by the procurement unit and evaluated by an appropriate evaluation panel…

“…breach of statutory duty to review and refer to Central Tender Review Committee for a concurrent approval of the purported award to Sibtons Switch Systems Limited in the ¢4.6 billion which is over and above the permissible approval threshold and limits of both head of entity and the BoG Entity Tender Committee.

According to the report, it was found that the threshold limit for the procurement fell within the BoG Governor’s approval limit and it did not require any concurrent agreement from the Central Tender Review Committee.

Exonerating the Central Bank further, the investigations established that the Central bank complied with its statutory duty in relation to approval limits and threshold as the contract was awarded by the BoG management.