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 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 goal posts 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.