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KABUL (SW) – New dimensions have emerged into the report about alleged corruption in a multi-million dollar telecom project inked in the presence of the President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and other top officials.
After an investigative report into the $ 11 million ‘Real Time Management’ contract of the telecom tax, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology announced the deal has been inked with the Bustos firm, which is partner to a U.S firm, Volter, with vast experience in some 20 countries. This is despite the fact that no representative of Volter was present at the signing agreement.
Three years ago, Arraxxee SAS Paris, Vanrise, PT Astra Graphia and Prologix LLC expressed interest in this Real Time Management contract. The Afghan government shared the contract conditions with these four firms, but strangely, Bustos, which was not in the initial list of bidders, has grabbed the deal.
Official sources have declined to share the detail of this contract, but Vanrise officials shared some details of the contract. Based on the contract requirement, Bustos should have been registered in the U.S prior to applying for the contract, but findings by SW indicate it only registered in Nevada a day after inking the deal. The firm applying for this project should have had at least eight years of experience, but out findings indicate Bustos only has up to three years of experience.
Its website has been developed in 2016, and its Facebook page has been inactive ever since SW published initial report into this alleged scam.
Another condition of the contract requires details of five-year work experience, but Bustos has emerged suddenly on the scene, and grabbed the project. Officials are quite about this, and are saying the National Procurement Agency would soon organize a meeting over this.
The contract conditions require the successful candidate to share details of its past experience with the government, and in case of partnership with another firm, the details about the partner organization should also be shared. But, Bustos has clearly failed to meet these requirements as well.
Sources told Salam Watandar the rest of four firms were meeting all these requirement, but the NPA told them the procurement process has been delayed. The source told SW these firms pitched up to $ 6 million for the ‘Ream Time Management’ project, but the MoCIT claims these firms pitched a much inflated price of up to $ 18 million.
Former minister for MoCIT, Abdul Razaq Wahidi, has said in a social media post that Bustos has a vague address and a local contact number with claims of experience in India, China and Africa without sharing more details. Wahidi has asserted that there is no mention of Bustos’s operations in other countries or even about its own financial mechanism. He said it seems ‘Real Time Management’ is this firm’s maiden contract. He added its CEO Joshwa Bustos seems very active in the social media, but he has never mentioned anything about Bustos ever.
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