Accused paid for no work done
The investigator in the GH¢4.1 million Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency GYEEDA case, Mrs Diana Adu-Anane, yesterday told the Financial Division of the High Court that one of the accused persons, Philip Akpeena Assibit, had posed as a consultant for the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI) when, indeed, he was not.
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Giving her evidence-in-chief, Mrs Adu-Anane said investigations found an MDPI letterhead which had been signed by Assibit, who had posed as a consultant.
On the said letterhead, Assibit claimed he had rendered services and, therefore, demanded payment and as a result, the second accused person, Abuga Pele, forwarded a letter to the then Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Clement Humado, to approve payment.
Led in evidence by a Chief State Attorney, Mrs Evelyn Keelson, the investigator said there was no consultancy agreement between Assibit’s Goodwill International Group (GIG) and the MDPI.
She is the seventh prosecution witness in the case in which a former National Co-ordinator of GYEEDA, Abuga Pele, and a representative of the GIG, Assibit, are facing various charges for causing financial loss of GH¢4.1 million to the state.
Background
The state has accused Assibit of putting in false claims that he had secured a $65-million World Bank funding for the creation of one million jobs for the youth, resulting in the government parting with GH¢4.1 million.
Pele is alleged to have acted in a manner resulting in the loss of the amount to the state.
Pele has pleaded not guilty to two counts of abetment of crime and intentionally misapplying public property and five counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the state.
Assibit has also pleaded not guilty to six counts of defrauding by false pretence and five counts of dishonestly causing loss to public property.
They are both on bail.
Computers
Witness told the court that in a 2009 agreement with GYEEDA, one of Assibit’s companies, Goodwill Solutions Africa, agreed to provide ICT training for the youth, but that agreement was never fulfilled.
Mrs Adu-Anane said the GIG was billed to provide computers for the programme but that was never done.
She said another agreement signed in 2010 between the MDPI and the GIG to train the youth on oil and gas was also not operationalised.
According to the investigator, the GIG and the MDPI entered into another agreement to plan exit strategies for trained youth but the programme did not materialise because Assibit could not raise the $65 million from the World Bank as agreed.
“Assibit has never been a consultant of the MDPI,” she emphasised, adding that it also emerged, during investigations, that the MDPI and the GIG were not a consortium.
Outcome of investigations
Witness told the court, presided over by Mrs Afia Serwaa Asare-Botwe, that investigators from the Ghana Police Service and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) also discovered that the GIG and the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), now GYEEDA, had entered into an agreement to be strategic partners in youth employment activities.
However, she indicated that investigations did not find the terms of work for the said agreement and asked Assibit if he could produce the terms of work, which he did.
She attempted to tender the said terms of work document in evidence as exhibit, but defence lawyers objected on the grounds that their clients had no knowledge of that document and were not its authors.
Messrs Raymond Bagnabu, counsel for Assibit, and Carl Adongo, lawyer for Pele, advanced arguments to indicate that the said document had page five as the last page while the preceding page was page 11.
Moreover, they argued that the last page of the document was a photocopy of the original agreement between the NYEP (GYEEDA) and the GIG.
But Mrs Keelson opposed their stance and maintained that Assibit handed the documents to investigators and it was, therefore, valid.
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The court adjourned proceedings to today to rule on whether or not to admit the document in evidence.