Former Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust, Ernest Thompson together with three others have been charged with causing financial loss to the state in the award of a $72million Operating Business Suite (OBS) contract.

The other three are former Head of IT Department, Caleb Kwaku Afaglo; former OBS project manager; John Hagan Mensah and Juliet Hasana Kramah of IT company, Perfect Business Systems.

 Five persons were initially picked up by the police including one Thomas Samson Owusu but four have been cautioned are to face prosecution for willfully causing financial loss to the state, aspects of a report by the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO), reveal.

The revelation was made at a press conference called by SSNIT to receive the findings of an investigation conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers into the OBS saga.

Background:

Director-General of SSNIT, Dr John Kojo Ofori Tenkorang in August 2017 told Joy News the entire OBS was not functioning despite the huge money spent on it.

Related Article: I'm still paying cash for faulty $72m software – New SSNIT boss

He said the non-functioning of the software was due to alterations made on it and some legal regime regulating their operations.

But his predecessor, Ernest Thompson dismissed the claim, saying he was aware only one module had challenges.

“When I was in office, we realized that, that particular module was not giving us the correct figures that we wanted,” he told Joy News.

Related Article: Controversial $72m SSNIT software working despite earlier claim 

The initial cost of the software procured to automate processes at SSNIT was $34 million when it was awarded to Perfect Business Systems and Silver Lake Consortium in 2012. But this ballooned to $72 million.