Accra, Nov. 28, – Alhaji Sulemana
Ibrahim, a Former Deputy National Co-ordinator in charge of Finance of the
Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) has
said, the National Coordinator has a threshold payment limit of GH₵20,000.00 he can approved.
Alhaji Ibrahim was answering to
questions as a defence witness to Mr Abuga Pele, the former National
Co-ordinator of GYEEDA led by Mr Abu Juan, the counsel for Pele on how payments
were made when services were rendered to the then NYEP.
He said there were two forms of
payment approvals; one was approval by the National Co-ordinator with a
threshold of GH₵20,000.00 and
the other one above the threshold, which needs approval from the Ministry of
Youth and Sports before payments were done.
The counsel asked, whether, it
has always been so at the NYEP, especially with the threshold system, the
witness said when he joined the NYEP in 2009, such arrangements were not there
but it was at a point in time that a directive through a letter from the
Ministry was communicated for that requirement, referring to the letter in
evidence in court.
He said to ensure smooth
operations of the outfit, all those payments belonging to the above category of
the GH₵20,000.00 threshold,
was normally complied with for the purpose of preparing a payment plan on a
monthly bases.
“This was commonly known as the
monthly payment plan of the NYEP,” he added.
The witness said this was to
avoid the frequent referral of each and every service document to the Ministry,
therefore, approval of the payment plan was often done from the Ministry and
when there was no objection, the Co-ordinator then proceed to instruct the
Deputy in Charge of Finance to kick start the process of payment.
He said upon the receipt of such
instruction, the Deputy will minute on the document, instructing the accountant
to prepare vouchers which would be duly
signed by the accountant and the Deputy, indicating that, he (Alhaji Ibrahim)
authorised the preparation of the voucher.
Alhaji Ibrahim said the National
Co-ordinator was the final person to sign as his approving the payment.
The counsel asked the witness to
take the court through the process of pre-audit at the Ministry and he said,
the work of the internal auditor involves the process of leading to obtain a
reasonable assurance that the request for payment was backed by a justifiable
claim.
Mr Juan further asked the witness
to explain, what he meant by a justifiable and he said “it means that the
auditor goes through receipts, invoices, vouchers, memos and other supporting
documents such as MoU and other evidence that will have supported the
deliverables.”
The Counsel suggested to Alhaji
Ibrahim that would he say all payment plan presented to the Ministry were
usually approved by the Minister and he said subjected to any disagreements by
the Ministry but for instance, where approval have been made, certain specific
deliverables were excluded from the list.
Mr Juan made reference to a memo
in evidence of a payment plan and also tendered a document through the witness
prepared by the witness and addressed to the Minister of Youth and Sport.
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
Wednesday November 29 by the High Court presided over by Mrs Afia Serwah
Asare-Botwe.
GNA
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