Education Ministry chases TANIT Ltd for over GH¢859,000 refund
The Ministry of Education has initiated moves for TANIT Limited, an Information Technology (IT) Company, to refund an amount of GH¢859,115.46 paid to them for a teacher training platform contract.
The amount constitutes 15 per cent of the payment the Company allegedly received out of the total contract sum at the initial stages of the agreement.
The Ministry said it had engaged the services of the IT Company on July 26, 2021, to provide a digital teacher training content and platform for it, however, the Company allegedly could not meet their obligation under the contract, which was supposed to be completed within five months.
The Ministry in a press release copied to the Ghana News Agency noted that they had written to the Company on June 22, 2022 and July 18, 2022, requesting for a refund but to no avail.
According to the statement, the Ministry was expecting the Company to perform each of the five deliverables contained in the contract and submit a claim respectively for work done at each stage but that did not happen.
Instead, “the Ministry received a letter from TANIT Ltd dated February 14, 2022, requesting the remaining payment of 85 per cent of the contract sum amounting to GH¢4,940,827.72 as per the deliverable schedule in the contract,” the statement added.
The deliverables comprise the submission of an inception report by August 2021 attracting payment of 15 per cent of the contract sum, which was met by the Company; design, construct, and build a platform for the training of teachers online by September 2021, attracting payment of 25 per cent, and to develop and build curriculum design by October 2021, also attracting 20 per cent payment.
Also, to operationalise a dashboard, platform sign off and go live by November 2021, which also attracts payment of 20 per cent and consultant to be required to stay on board for additional two months (December 2021 to January 2022) after the project goes live for quality assurance, which attracts the remaining 20 per cent.
According to the statement, TANIT Ltd did not submit monthly reports for the remaining four deliverables but lumped the four reports together and requested the payment of the remaining 85 per cent contract sum.
“In addition, TANIT Ltd also failed to complete the project within the five-month period as prescribed by the contract.”
“It must be noted that TANIT Ltd submitted a lumped payment claim of the remaining 85 per cent on 14th February 2022 meanwhile, the contract, which was signed on July 26, 2021, was supposed to be completed by January 2022,” the statement added.
The statement said the Company’s contract was not terminated as speculated but it expired forcing the Ministry to seek support from another source for the successful execution of the project.
It assured the public of the Ministry’s commitment to making clever use of resources it received from the government for the provision of quality education to all Ghanaians irrespective of location.
“The Ministry did not cook up figures but gave actual training figures to merit the payment of the project fund from the World Bank,” it added.
Source: GNA