Top management of Ghana Airport Company has revealed that contrary to claims by the Deputy Minister of Health, it is emerging that there may not be an official contract covering the COVID 19 testing at the Kotoka International Airport.
According to sources, as late as last week, there were moves by top officials to bring sanctity to the deal by drafting a contract and backdating it as a way to clean up the deal.
Whatup News gathered that legal sources who were approached to put the retrospective contract together were hesitant due to what they feared could result in serious future consequences.
for the controversial transaction at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) which allows Frontier Healthcare Services Limited to undertake a COVID-19 testing of travellers at US$ 150 each.
The Ministry of Health, the Ghana Airport Company and the Noguchi Memorial Medical Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) at Legon are at the center of the testing, yet the three institutions are given a laughable US$ 11 per test, while Frontier pockets US$ 139 on each traveller that lands at the KIA.
The deal which stinks of official collusion was curiously sole-sourced to Frontier Healthcare Services, even when Frontier had no track record in the area, nor has a laboratory to be able to effectively conduct the tests.
Whatsup New has gathered from reliable sources at the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL) that Management has only started drafting a valid contract, almost three months after Frontier has been squeezing US$ 150 from each traveller arriving Ghana through KIA.
Our sources say the contract will be back-dated to give it legitimacy. In line with this plan, they say the claim by Deputy Minister of Health Bernard Okoe-Boye that GACL signed a contract with is Frontiers Healthcare Services is a red herring.
The minister in a recent interview with Starr FM stated that the contract for the testing of COVID 19 at the airport was awarded by Ghana Airport Company and not the ministry.
“The Employer, the one who signed the contract with the service provider is the Ghana Airport Company Limited, just that Ministry of Health through Port Health at the airport worked closely because they, by law, handle our borders. So it is like a private-public partnership to make sure that the data is captured on our system,” Dr. Okoe-Boye stated categorically.
A few weeks ago several civil society organisations and media houses, including Whatsup News exposed the transaction and its related conflict of interest.
Investigations show how Frontier Healthcare is using the staff and resources of Noguchi and yet, is giving the public research institute a paltry US$ 4 per test, while it keeps the rest of the US$150 squeezed out of each arriving travellers at KIA for the much-criticised COVID-19 test.
Frontier Healthcare Services is reportedly linked to individuals with close ties to the Akufo Addo administration.
The company is 100% owned by Healthcare Solutions Limited, a company which is, in turn, owned 100% by The Peters Family Company Limited, an opaque company registered in the notorious Caribbean Island tax haven called Dominica.
The direct beneficial owners of Frontiers has been illegally covered up, raising suspicions that officials of the Akufo Addo administration are using it as a front to cover up their interest.
Investigations reveal that the deal was routed through Professor William Kwabena Ampofo who is the Coordinator of the National Laboratory for COVID 19 Testing at Noguchi.
Incidentally, Prof. Ampofo is a direct cousin to President Akufo Addo whose friend is Benedict Peters a Nigerian billionaire, Benedict Peters.
Meanwhile, civil society groups and scientists from both Noguchi and elsewhere that the COVID-19 test being conducted at Kotoka was a rip-off because it is an Antigen test-which is one of the least accurate and cheapest.
Yet, Ghana was charging the highest price worldwide for the cheap test.
Also, it has emerged that the test by Frontier Healthcare Services has not undergone any clinical verification and thus cannot be considered safe to be used effectively on humans.