Accra, Nov. 29, – Mr Abuga Pele, the former National
Co-ordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development
Agency (GYEEDA) has said, the external source of funding was actually
conceptualise by consultants of the Goodwill International Group (GIG).
He said “the consultants of which
Philip Akpeena Assibit, was their leader conceptualised the idea of sourcing
the external funding of 65-million dollars from the World Bank and from
DANIDA’s 5-million Euros.”
Mr Pele said this during his
evidence in Chief, when he was led by Mr Abu Juan his counsel.
He said the GIG submitted
proposals to the World Bank, DANIDA and other external sources of funding
including the International Labour Organisationn (ILO).
He said the DANIDA project was
one of the major services of the consultants and was separate from that of the
World Bank.
He said the whole concept of
World Bank funding was an independent initiative of the NYEP with assistance of
GIG, adding that correspondent between the Bank and the NYEP attest to that.
The counsel introduced a letter
to Pele, for him to identify it and he said it was a letter from the World Bank
addressed to the then Minister of Finance, Dr Kwebena Duffour and copied to him
(the Former National Co-ordinator).
He said there was another letter
from the World Bank to the Minister dated November 18, 2009, indicating there
had been an ongoing discussion with the NYEP to improve on the options to make
the programme better.
He said apart from the
discussions, the trip to Latin America came up and the World Bank also intended
to make the NYEP programme a country strategy and within a short time and
decided to support it through a pilot one.
Mr Juan also introduced another
document and asked Mr Pele to quote, the parts that were relevant and the
witness said, the introduction of the letter, would be important to the court
and it reads ‘As you know, the World Bank team visited Ghana between July 26 to
August 3, 2012 to work with the NYEP programme under the Ministry of Youth and
Sport to explore further options to support the programme.’
The counsel asked the accused
person on what bases would he advice the Minister of Youth and Sports to
approve a particular payment request and he said it was when all the services
were ascertained to be executed, and this was done collectively by the Minister,
internal auditor and the monitoring team.
“There is also a verification
from the finance department, the monitoring team and other stakeholders,” he
said.
He said the services, which were
executed for which approvals were given for payment to be made included
securing funding, active labour review reports and action plan for the
implementation of the youth enterprise project, exit plan and development of
the proposals.
The Mr Pele, the former National
Co-ordinator of GYEEDA and Mr Assibit, a Representative of Goodwill
International Group (GIG) are facing various charges of causing financial loss
to the state to the tune of GH₵4.1
million.
Assibit is accused of putting in
false claims that he had secured a 65-million-dollar World Bank funding for the
creation of one million jobs for the youth, which led government to part with
GH₵4.1 million to his company
but he failed to deliver per the agreement.
The case has been adjourned to
Thursday November 30 by the High Court presided over by Mrs Afia Serwah
Asare-Botwe.
GNA
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