Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Former Minister of Youth and Sports Clement
Kofi Humado yesterday said the former National Coordinator of National Youth
Employment Programme (NYEP) Abuga Pele made some payments to a private
consortium without recourse to him.
He said although he instituted what he called
‘payment plan to monitor the inflow and outflow of NYEP funds’, Abuga Pele who
worked directly under him, had authorized the payments to Management Development
and Productivity Institute/Goodwill International Group (MDPI/GIG) consortium
led by Phillip Akpeena Assibit.
Mr. Humado was testifying yesterday at the
ongoing trail of Philip Akpeena Assibit, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GIG
and incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for Chiana-Paga, Abuga Pele in what had
become the GYEEDA Scandal at an Accra Financial Court presided over by Justice
Afia Asare Botwe.
Mr. Humado who is also the immediate past
Minister of Agriculture and MP for Anlo told the court under cross-examination
by Raymond Bagnabu, counsel for Assibit that expenditure at the NYEP was done
by the National Coordinator since he was the manager of the NYEP account as the
Coordinator.
Payment plan
When pushed by counsel that he had claimed he
initiated a move to ensure all transaction followed a payment plan the witness
said “not all payments conformed to the plan under my tenure.”
He explained that he had set up the payment
plan as a management tool to monitor the inflow and outflow of the programmes
funds and said it was not during his tenure that all payments were made to the
MDPI/GIG consortium adding “payment started before I came into office.”
“I approved a payment plan and not the payment
of each individual item on the plan because the plan is a projection and
depending upon circumstances during the month, actual projections might
change,” the fourth Prosecution Witness (PW4) told the court when counsel sought
to prove to him that he approved what Abuga Pele had submitted requesting
payment.
Mr. Humado told the court that the approval
payment plan could not be substituted for disbursement approval for items on
the payment plan and said the ministry received direct income flow from
statutory bodies and it went directly into NYEP accounts.
He
admitted that one of the reasons why the $65million World Bank facility did not
arrive was that there was no legal framework for the NYEP, now known as Ghana
Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) even though
counsel pointed out in the course of the trial that Mr. Humado, the Vice
President John Mahama and others had announced that the amount had been secured
as far back as 2012.
Evidence-in-chief
Led in evidence by Mrs. Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa,
a Chief State Attorney, Mr. Humado earlier told the court that he approved the
processing of $2million for the MDPI/GIG consortium formed to secure the World
Bank facility for the Youth Enterprise Programme (YEP) but added that the
consortium was formed before he became Minister of Youth and Sports.
He said it had been agreed by cabinet that the
YEP should be developed separately from the NYEP and should not subsumed or become
an appendage of the programme.
He said Abuga Pele once brought a memo to him
on the project and told him that the NYEP entered into an MoU with Assibit’s
GIG and that the project had already been pre-financed and were just awaiting
for reimbursement.
He admitted writing to cabinet because he realised
that the government had no information on the proposed YEP and also said that
he once received an invoice from Assibit requesting for payment of close to
$500,000 in respect of exit strategy that was supposed to have been developed
for the NYEP.
EOCO invitation
He said he was invited by EOCO who interrogated
him about how state funds went into the private account of Assibit instead of the
MDPI as he had directed in respect of project preparatory studies purportedly
carried out.
The MP said the ministry’s Chief Director and
Internal Auditor requested Abuga Pele to ensure payment to MDPI on a refundable
basis which the accused did not do.
“I expected him to ensure payment was made to
the MDPI so if that was not done it was for them to explain,” he said.
He said EOCO also told him that GH¢59,000 was
paid Assibit for filed data collection under the MDPI/GIG consortium instead of
a new module that as being introduced.
Accused persons
The
accused persons are on trial for the various roles they played, which the
Attorney General’s Department said caused huge financial loss to the state.
The
NDC MP is accused of wilfully causing financial loss to the state to the tune
of GH¢3,330,568.53 while Assibit is being tried for defrauding the state of an
amount equivalent to $1,948,626.68.
The
two have pleaded not guilty and are currently on bail.
Charges
The
Chiana-Paga MP is facing six counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the
state under Section 179A (3) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 Act 29, two
counts of abetment under Sections 20(1) and 131(1) of the Criminal Offences
Act, 1960 (Act 29) and one count of intentionally misapplying public property,
contrary to Section 1(2) of the Public Property Protection Act, 1977 (SMCD)
140.
Mr. Assibit, who is the first accused person on the
other hand, is facing six counts of defrauding by false pretences, contrary to
Section 131(1) of the Criminal and Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) and five counts
of dishonestly causing loss to public property contrary to Section 2(1) of the
Public Property Protection Act, 1977 (SMCD) 1.
Sitting continues today.
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