COVID Corruption Report Will Be Toilet Paper If Uncertified – Ursula Challenges Researchers
Minister of Communication and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful says a recently released report on the government’s handling of COVID-19 response will be as good as toilet paper unless its authors certify the contents.
The Minister was specifically cited in the part of the report that alleged that a COVID-19 tracker app which government says was developed for free had actually cost the taxpayer around a million dollars.
Ursula spoke on Accra-based TV station on Wednesday, after she had tweeted dismissing the contents of the report as absolutely false and pure adulterated lies presented as facts.
The said report, by the Community Development Alliance, CDA, also alleged that the president’s cousin was complicit in deals that led to the certification of Frontiers Health Services as the sole Coronavirus testing outfit at the Kotoka International Airport when borders were reopened in September 2020.
“Absolutely false, no contract has been awarded for that amount. I have also seen some figures put out for the launch of the app but it is also a figment of somebody’s imagination
“Nobody paid that much for either the app or for its launch and I have said so umpteenth time so I am surprised that this organization which claims it is putting together a corruption assessment of our COVID-19 response will elevate speculation by rumours and absolute falsehood as facts.”
The Ablekuma West lawmaker the end game of CDA though was to impugn the integrity of the government and malign, she was challenging them to certify the contents of the report or that it be used as toilet paper.
She also vehemently challenged a portion of the report that suggested that two different entities were involved in the development of the app.
She said the only company is known to her, Accent Digital Technologies, had developed the app for free as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility – being their contribution to the government’s fight against Coronavirus.
“If I am challenging this one fact, then it puts the entire package of lies that they have put out there, the entire work, it brings its credibility into serious question and I urge every institution that has been named in this research to take a copy of that report, look at it and verify whether or not what has been put out there is a figment of their imagination or it is what really happened.”
To the CDA she said: “I am putting this group of researchers to strict proof and insist that they certify the work that they have done or we will use it as toilet paper.”
CDA has yet to comment on the Minister’s reaction to their report at the time of filing this report.