Web Master
..NPP Govt Laziness Expose:
The Global Positioning System (GPS), which was recently launched by the government as Ghana’s official digital property addressing system has been described as a scam and fraud deliberately schemed by members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to steal from the tax payer, Mr Kingsley Eliklem Kombla Mortey, a GPS expert has said.
The GPS App which has been developed by Vocakom Softwares Company and launched by the President Nana Akufo Addo, is to cover every inch of the country and ensures that all locations in the country are digitally addressed.
Vokacom was awarded a $2.5million (Ghc9.99million) contract to build the controversial Ghana Post GPS which has already betrayed many faults.
The government and its appointees also claimed that with the GhanaPostGPS, every location would have a unique digital address which would help to enhance the country economy, especially address and location of property.
But at a press conference organized by a political pressure group, Coalition of Democratic Governance (CDG) in Accra yesterday, Mr Motrye, a Ghanaian US based GPS Expert, said, the GPS project was launched by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1973 for use by the United States military originally Navstar GPS.
He said, it was a space-based radio navigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force, explaining, ” It is a global navigation satellite system that provides geo-location and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.”
Currently, he noted, the U.S has 33 satellites and has since launched 31 of them in the orbit and the first launch been 1978, thus about 39 years ago.
On the usage GPS, Mr Mortey said, is highly of security concerns and therefore not security wise for a country like Ghana to use it, pointing out that, there were other systems that are in use or under development, mainly because the US government could selectively deny access to the system.
For instance, he said, it has ever happened to the Indian military in 1999 during the Kargil War, and that, the US has the capacity as copyright to degrade the service at any time .
Other Apps which could function similarly, the expert said, includes a Russian owned known as Global Navigation Satellite System, (GLONASS), another space-based satellite navigation system operating in the radionavigation-satellite service.
The GLONASS, Mr Mortey stated, provides an alternative to GPS and is the second navigational system in operation with global coverage and of comparable precision.
He said the development of GLONASS began in the Soviet Union in 1976 and on 12 October 1982, numerous rocket launches added satellites to the system until the constellation was completed in 1995.
He argued that, there were several global satellites navigators been developed across the world where such Apps are been build for interest of the specific countries and wondered why the government of Ghana should spent such colossal amount of money for GPS which is already in the system.
With these global navigation system available, he wondered why a whole Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia could stoop so low and accept what he described as “laziness” to be trumpeting that the Ghana is leapfrogging ahead of UK,USA and others in digital navigation when such could be easily access on the google plus codes.
While describing the entire contract as a “fraud and scam executed to loot and share the nation tax payer money,” Mr Mortey questioned the intelligence of the government appointees who jumps from one media house to another in defence of what he termed” a complete scam”, stating, instead of the them to admit the mistake and we move, they are seriously defending it.”
The GPS expert contended that,”AsaaseGPS is a location based system which provides the most effective means of addressing every location and place. Every 5×5 Metre square is represented by a 10 Digit Code known as the Digital Address. This unique address covers every landmark in Africa both in urban and rural areas.”
He said, Vokacom did not developed any new App making its unique to Ghana and that everything was downloaded or better still copy and paste from the AsaaseGPS which is already in the system.
In his view, what government should be doing was to encourage the physical address system that would give accurate address without any usage of devices, asking that, “so if you have a mobile device to locate a property and the device(Mobile Phone) had low battery and goes off, how do you locate the address?”
On the idea that the App would help Ghanaians to develop their own unique address code, Mr Mortey said, that itself was a sign of total failure of the government, stating that, “it is the duty of the government to provide address and code to the citizens and not the other way round.”
He said, many banks, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Water Company limited (GWCL) are all using the GPS with their own modified system to track their customers for which reason government been lazy in asking that residents generate their own code and address.
Meanwhile, Vasmol (Vokacom) has also been accused of owing the government of Ghana close to three million Ghana cedis (Ghc3000000) in tax evasion money, money that it ought to have paid between 2012 and 2016.
Mr Samuel Gyimfi, a Member of the Communication team of the opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) disclosed that, Vokacom evaded tax and owed such amount of money to Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
However, a Deputy Minister Minister of Communication, George Andah who was present at the press conference debunked the allegation that Vokacom evaded tax and that the company has got a tax clearance certificate.
He also denied that the government acted corruptibly in the award of the GOSApp contract, emphasizing that, the App is good for Ghana and that it would help solve the big problem in the property address system as it goes digital.
The tax clearance certificate is testament to the fact that the company has a track record and has been faithfully filing its tax returns. Vokacom from its days as Vasmol Enterprise had not been filing these taxes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga6POftRZ3c
Ghanapoliticsonline.com
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings