As many as twenty six (26) tech companies bid to work on the National Digital Property Addressing System, Deputy Communications Minister has revealed.
The tech companies, George Andah said responded to an advertised tender announcement in the Dailies issued by the Ministry of Communications.
Out of the 26, the Awutu Senya Member of Parliament (MP) said 6 qualified and hence were made to purchase tender documents for the programme.
“Vokacom offered the best bid of $2.5 million…some companies bids of over $100 million…,” he said.
The application which was launched by President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is aimed at providing an effective means of addressing every location and place in the country, using an information technology application.
The app, which government said cost the country $2.5 million, has been criticized by some experts in the technology space as well as some civil society organisations.
Some of these criticisms have also bothered on the cost of the project especially the cost involved in campaign for the usage of the app.
Ghana Post has spent GHC3.5 million on publicity to market the launched digital property addressing system.
NDC MP for Bongo, Edward Bawa speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen on Tuesday said that he believes the country could have had the address system for free.
“It is too expensive, Ghana did not get value for money…we could have gotten it for free…,” he said.
According to him, the app operates on Google address system which generates addresses automatically for users.
The erstwhile Mahama administration, he claimed, started a similar process using another app, Asaase.com.
This app, Deputy Communications Minister, George Andah said cannot be compared with the Ghana Post GPS system as Asaase.com lacked technical support and firewalls.
To George Andah, the NDC ought to be ‘ashamed’ and stop criticizing the current administration over the Ghana Post GPS as it failed to initiate a better project than this in its entire eight years in power.
“NDC should be ashamed of themselves for criticizing Ghana Post GPS. If indeed it was free, why couldn’t they do it all the years they spent in power only for Akufo-Addo to do so in ten months?” he queried.
Minister says NDC, Ambassador says NDC. Could some “GROWN UPS” know that NDC is not Ghana, neither is Ghana NDC. Is about time Ghana is liberated once again.