Ablakwa Petitions World Bank Over Ursula’s US$48m ‘Unapproved’ Contract1 min read
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for North Tongu has disclosed having petitioned the World Bank over a project being rolled out by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization.
Ablakwa, last week, alleged through documents from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) that the sector minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, had handed out a contract of US$48 million without PPA approval.
The minister denied the claims and challenged the MP to produce the said contract she had signed.
He produced further particulars which the minister dismissed as a case of shifting goalposts on the issue.
On July 12, 2023; the lawmaker published a formal petition he had submitted to the World Bank a day prior, seeking a probe into the “irregularities, misrepresentation, insider dealing & conflict of interest,” around the US$48million Ascend Scandal.
He captioned his tweet thus: “Yesterday I petitioned @WorldBank to launch investigations into the litany of irregularities, misrepresentation, insider dealing & conflict of interest relating to the US$48million Ascend Scandal & how that was used to fraudulently secure a US$49.5m WB funded eTransform project.”
The eight-page petition was addressed to Ms Maria C. Mallo, a senior investigator of the World Bank in Washington. Ablakwa stated that his petition was premised on the bank’s Anti-Corruption Guidelines.
