SSNIT report confusing, inaccurate and lacks clarity – Tax expert
A tax expert, Mr. Cudjoe Akpabey, has stated that the report that indicted the former Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson and three top management members of the pension fund for their alleged roles in the failed IT project – Operational Business Suite (OBS) initiative of the Trust is confusing and incomplete.
The report covered operations of SSNIT for the period ended 31st December, 2016 and the three-month period ending 31st March, 2017. Michael Asiedu, lead partner in the PwC assessment, said his team did not speak to any of the indicted persons.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers report also indicted the previous board of SSNIT headed by Joshua Alabi, an NDC presidential hopeful.
It was reported that on December 9, last year, Mr Ernest Thompson allegedly ordered the payment of $9 million to Perfect Business Systems after the NDC had lost the elections in 2016 and was on its way out of power.
SSNIT allegedly agreed to pay $4 per card that was to be issued to pensioners in the contract but the amount increased miraculously to $7 per card and the Trust ended up paying the private company $7.1 million for one million cards.
Reacting to the report, the tax expert in an interview with Kwame Tutu, said the fact of the matter is that, the media is getting everything wrong because if PwC was to conduct an audit review, then that was different from forensic audit.
In his view, the investigation should be premised on forensic audit with technical people including IT professionals among others appointed to do it.
Mr. Akpabey said, ‘’I expect the media to be on top of the issues…The media must be clear because when I heard PwC did an exercise and called for further investigation, it means the work wasn’t conclusive… So this thing must be clarified because I am at a lost over what is happening in the media.’’
He quizzed if we are dealing with the EOCO or PwC report adding, if we are dealing with the EOCO report, then it has gone to the Attorney General and so the media must collaborate with the A-G and get the report.
He also explained to the host that he is aware EOCO has conducted an investigation into the matter and was wondering what PwC did.
He wondered why SSNIT held a press conference when they did no job. He emphasized that the finding is inaccurate when the persons indicted were not given as opportunity to respond to the issues raised in the report. ‘’It will be strange to me if the accounting firm did not talk to them [indicted persons…This country we are lackadaisical.
That is what we do. We have to be fair,’’ he said. Mr. Akpabey said, the finding may not stand the text of time in a court because of how the issues have been handled and further slammed the media for twisting the fact and confusing the general public. He asked for thorough work to be conducted so the reputation of people is not damaged.
Source: rainbowradioonline
