Valentina Mintah
Ghanaian-owned ICT consultancy, West Blue Ghana, yesterday filed a suit against the Attorney General (AG) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) demanding to be paid an amount of GH¢289 million, which the plaintiff described as overdue arrears for contractual work it did under the National Single Window (NSW) and Integrated Risk Management System.
According to West Blue, though the NSW contract it signed with the Government of Ghana categorically stated that the company would be paid a fee equal to 0.35% of the final invoice CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) value of import consignments entering into Ghana through the seaports, airports, and land borders, it ended up being paid a fee equivalent to only 0.28% instead of the agreed percentage.
The writ explained that in a series of letters dated January 25, 2018, February 4, 2019 and March 14, 2019, respectively, the then Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng alluded to West Blue’s contract price of 0.35% and subsequently reduced the fee to 0.28% of the final invoice CIF value of all imports.
West Blue explained that though the payment terms, as agreed in the contract was a fixed percentage of the final invoice CIF of all imports, government, since 2015 till the contract was ended in 2020 has failed to pay the full amount of the fixed percentage of the final invoice CIF value of import consignments entering Ghana through the seaports, airports, and land borders.
The company said it is compelled to go to court as a last resort because all attempts to get the matter amicably resolved failed.
It said several correspondence through its lawyers Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa and Ankomah (BELA) and Africa Legal Associates (ALA) to the Ministry of Finance and the second defendant (GRA) have been unsuccessful, as the defendants, without any lawful basis, have remained adamant on their position that all payment obligations owed the plaintiff (West Blue) have been discharged.
Apart from the amount of GH¢289 million, West Blue, in the writ is also seeking a complete recovery of the equipment the company procured to perform its obligations under the NSW contract and the additional services it rendered from January 1, 2019 to May 2020 at the request of the Ministry of Finance and second defendant, which have been retained by the defendants.
It is also seeking “compensation for loss of use of the equipment referred to in relief (g)(i) supra from May 2020 until the date of final recovery thereof, or in the alternative, recovery of an amount of Four Hundred and Twenty-Five Thousand United States Dollars (US$425,000.00) being the value of the equipment procured by the plaintiff to perform its obligations under the NSW Contract and the additional services it rendered from January 1, 2019 to May 2020, which have been retained by the defendants”.
By Vincent Kubi